BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

A week in the annals
of the church of Bergoglio
[A good snapshot of the upheaval
of Catholicism in this pontificate]
By Steve Skojec
ONEPETERFIVE
July 1, 2017

This past week has been incredibly busy for Church news. There is a definitive sense that the Francis agenda has shifted to a higher gear. We didn’t have the time to cover all the stories of relevance over the past week, so here’s a top-level recap of what’s been happening, sorted by day.

Monday, June 26:
Re-imagining Humanae Vitae
In a report by Phil Lawler entitled, 'Pope may not have ordered re-examination of contraception, but it’s happening under his watch', Lawler echoes the denial (not at all believable, in my book) issued by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and grand chancellor of the John Paul II Institute (as well as star of his own homoerotic mural and promoter of pornographic sex ed materials) that any re-examination of Humanae Vitae in light of Amoris Laetitia exists.

You may recall we reported on this based on Roberto de Mattei’s confirmation of the existence of just such a commission. “The bad news,” writes Lawler, “is that the commission exists. Call it a ‘study group’ if you prefer, but there is a scholarly panel, working under the auspices of a pontifical institute, preparing a reappraisal of Humanae Vitae.” Lawler continues:

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Archbishop Paglia assured Gagliarducci that “there is no pontifical commission called to re-read or to re-interpret Humanae Vitae. OK, Pope Francis didn’t appoint the commission. He didn’t need to. By appointing Archbishop Paglia, and appointing the new members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, he ensured that these institutions would take a new direction.

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Or put it this way: Pope Francis didn’t appoint the commission that is now studying Humanae Vitae. But that commission wouldn’t exist within the Vatican if it didn’t have the Pope’s implicit approval.

Summorum Pontificum under fire
While we were sharing a new drink recipe from Dr. Michael Foley to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum and the liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass, progressive Italian Catholic theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli — whose name, interestingly, translates into English as “Maximum Beans” — was showing what he’s full of.

You see, Faggioli thinks Pope Francis is the living embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of Vatican II “reformers”, so it may come as no surprise that he’s not a fan of Pope Benedict’s work in restoring the Latin Mass paradigm:

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Paul VI and John Paul II had already sought to accommodate liturgical traditionalists by issuing special indults for celebrating the pre-Vatican II liturgy, most particularly in 1984 and 1988. But they never cast any doubt on the legitimacy and the good fruits of the Vatican II liturgical reform, the theological and ecclesiological framework of which is found in the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Those earlier popes saw a fundamental coherence between the tradition of the Church, the theology of Vatican II and the council’s liturgical reform.

But this picture changed significantly under Benedict XVI, whose pontificate needs to be analyzed in its complexity; that is, through his speeches, policy decisions, and personnel appointments. It makes no sense to interpret the theology of his entire pontificate solely on the basis of his address on the “two hermeneutics” of Vatican II or on his encyclicals. [But who is doing that??? Faggioli's entire line of argumentation here is via strawmen arguments, if I may call them that - he sets them up arbitrarily without logic or sense.]

There is little doubt that Benedict expressed and embodied a clear shift from a magisterium that saw Vatican II as part of the tradition of the Church to a magisterium that saw the tradition and Vatican II in much more complicated terms. [Come again? What is there not to understand? 'Reform and renewal in continuity' is Benedict's hermeneutic, for which many prominent 'traditionalist' bloggers have been denouncing him as a traitor to the faith! Go figure!] Certain issues, such as the liturgical reform, were seen in tension and opposition.[Does Faggioli think when he writes? All the pet progressivist interpretations of Vatican II, not just their Protestantization of the liturgy, were definitely in opposition to any hermeneutic of continuity.]

While it is certainly too early to assess the long-term effects of Summorum Pontificum, it is necessary to begin the effort. For example, ten years on it is striking to re-read Benedict’s hasty, and failed, attempt to stop the tendency to interpret the “motu proprio” as a denunciation of Vatican II, [I must have been on another planet when it happened. What exactly was that attempt???] which – in fact – is widespread in Catholic traditionalist circles.

…There are two phenomena that are part of the post-Summorum Pontificum ecclesial and theological landscape of Roman Catholicism, which are difficult to separate from the pontificate of Benedict XVI.

The first phenomenon is that Summorum Pontificum boosted the pre-existing, sociologically limited world of liturgical traditionalism and projected it onto the wider world of the Catholic Church, especially among English-speakers. It is has given theological legitimacy to traditionalist views of the Vatican II liturgical reforms. And it has raised the visibility of traditionalist liturgy in the virtual spaces of the Catholic Church. [Well, now, ain't that quite an admission! So TLM lovers are no longer derided as being no more than the proverbial isolated four cats!]

Over the past decade, social media has increasingly become a forum where the people of God can make their voices heard. Images of elaborate vestments used for pre-Vatican II liturgical celebrations have become part of the daily diet of those who follow the life of local churches and even prominent Church leaders. This has had a significant impact on important parts of contemporary Roman Catholicism and its future – especially on committed Catholic youth and recent converts, as well as on seminarians and young priests. [Well, wonders will never cease! I did not think I'd live to see the day this point of view gets circulated beyond blogs like Father Z's to be reported by a certified Bergoglian ultramontanist like Faggioli!]

The second phenomenon has been the reduction of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology to that of traditionalism. [Excuse me??? The fact that all his writings as Joseph Ratzinger are now coming out in the 16-volume COLLECTED WRITINGS argues against ‘reducing’ his theology to anything, least of all to ‘traditionalism’, whatever that is!]

In fact, Summorum Pontificum has helped to greatly distort the overall theological legacy of one of the most important theologians in the 20th century. [How can a document that upholds and, in many ways, epitomizes the theology of the Church as expressed in its liturgy be considered a ‘distortion’ of Ratzinger’s overall theological legacy?]

If Joseph Ratzinger’s emphasis was on the tradition of the Church (“continuity and reform”), Benedict XVI’s pontificate has been reduced, especially in these last few years, to an icon of traditionalism (against any kind of theological development, seen as “discontinuity”). [A nonsense statement! How has the B16 Pontificate been reduced to an icon of traditionalism – and by whom? There have been at least 10 consequential books that have been published in the past four years that seek to look at the totality of that Pontificate and not just from selected aspects. None of them reduces it to nothing more than ‘traditionalism’. What a stupid remark to make, when two of the major achievements of the Pontificate were far from traditional – breaking the culture of silence in the Church itself over abuses by men of the Church, and opening Vatican finances to scrutiny by an international agency for the first time ever.]

This liturgical traditionalism has contributed to an overall traditionalist understanding of Catholicism to the point that it has become a problem and challenge for Pope Francis. [Ah, so – that was Faggioli’s point for all his preceding nonsense! What he calls an overall traditonalist understanding of Catholicism is Bergoglio-speak for reaffirming Catholic orthodoxy in all areas of Church life – doctrine, discipline, liturgy, mission, saving souls.]

Last year (July 11, 2016) the pope finally felt the need to intervene. In a statement released by the Holy See Press Office, he disavowed the so-called “reform of the liturgical reform”, which Cardinal Robert Sarah – prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship – had promoted a few days earlier during a public lecture to priests in London. [Bergoglio may disavow it all he wants, but the seed of liturgical devotion was planted by Benedict XVI and it continues to grow like the proverbial mustard seed.]

…Liturgical traditionalism among Catholics has had a negative effect on the acceptance of other documents from Vatican II, such as those on ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and missionary activity of the Church.

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[Faggioli does not, of course, mean ‘acceptance’ of these documents, as much as the orthodox interpretation of them versus the Bergoglio progressivist worldview which interprets ecumenism, inter-religious dialog and missionary activity all in terms of working towards a secular ‘one world religion’ in which effectively, nothing will be left of the one God and Christianity in the pantheon of secular gods. Besides, does Bergoglio really think Islam will get on board his 'one world religion' train???]

Tuesday, June 27:
Walfordism and the Four Cardinals
My battle with Stephen Walford over Amoris Laetitia last week spilled over to Twitter, where I’m less known for diplomacy and more for my skills in heckling. After recognizing that I should be a better evangelist than pugilist, at one point I apologized to Walford for being so abrasive.

And then the next day, a piece of fetid garbage was published in which Walford, with his over-inflated sense of his own theological knowledge, suits up in his characteristic hubris and tells the Four Cardinals to go pound sand.

He tells them that their dubia have already been answered, and then proceeds to tell them about his favorite magisterial documents, which he’s fond of quoting every chance he gets if he feels it can prove his point (but never when it doesn’t.)

He then asks them a series of condescending questions (as one Catholic commentator said to me privately, “I hope Walford is a better pianist than he is theologian and papal apologist, because his two pieces are, at times, embarrassing. Even farcical.”), accuses them of not living in the “real world,” and then delivers this load of manure to their doorstep:

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I will end by humbly [sic!] asking you to reconsider your position on this issue. You may or may not be aware that there is a growing section of traditionalists and even some conservative Catholics who see you as the standard bearers for the rejection of this papacy. I know from experience that some of it is deeply troubling.

The abuse from many, including those who run websites and Traditionalist blogs aimed at the Holy Father and those who are loyal to him, is nothing short of satanic. [It is never being satanic to speak the truth! It is satanic to distort it and/or ignore it for your own purposes.] You are their role models and that is an intolerable situation. In reality, there is no confusion but only outright rejection and defiance towards the legitimate Pope and his magisterial teachings. If all the Cardinals had accepted and defended Pope Francis’s clear teaching [HAH!], there would have been no fuel for the dissenting fire.

In the desire for the Unity of the Church around Peter, it is essential to affirm that the Pope has the authority — ratified in heaven — to make disciplinary changes for the good of some divorced and remarried souls, and so I ask you to bring to an end this situation by accepting the constant Tradition of the Church that Popes are free from error in matters of faith and morals and that derives from the specific prayer of Jesus himself: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail”(Lk. 22: 32).

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[What a load of bullshit! Doesn't speak very well for the caliber of apologists sprouting up for Bergoglio, does it? Who is this Walford guy anyway – a clone of the odious Austin Ivereigh or his pseudonym?... I took a minute to google him – turns out he is someone other than Ivereigh – a pianist and a family man from Southampton, England, who has written two unlikely books, one on the Heralds of the Gospel, since anathematized by the church of Bargoglio, and another on the ‘Marian Popes from Pius IX to Benedict XVI’. What, he did not go as far as to include his idol who does not waste a chance to proclaim his devotion to the Mother of God even though he won’t kneel for her?]

It’s a good thing this Walford fellow is so much smarter than these eminent and esteemed cardinals, most of whom are experts in their respective fields. What would they do without him? La Stampa needs to fire its editorial staff [and just hire Ivereigh and Walford clones].

For Walford’s attack to be rolled out like this (it was immediately boosted by a Crux article with no byline) — an attack I’m afraid I gave oxygen to by bothering to respond to his five-month old failed [and hardly noticed] essay about AL’s place in Catholic magisterial teaching — makes me wonder if he’s being used as a surrogate to begin a new round of attacks on anyone questioning AL. I fully expect to see more thought pieces soon using Walfordian logic to demean and rebuke the Four Cardinals.

For what it’s worth, Latin Mass Society of England and Wales Chairman and Oxford Fellow Dr. Joseph Shaw took Walford behind the woodshed. I won’t excerpt it here, but suffice to say he uses the phrases “suppose for a mad moment that in Walford-land” and “Walford appears to inhabit an parallel universe in which the only problems being caused by Amoris are being caused by theological conservatives” and “This suggestion is so insane that I do not believe that Walford can have this in mind”. It’s gleeful.

Wednesday, June 28
Pope Benedict, are you trying to tell us something?
On Wednesday, Pope Francis made five new cardinals at the Public Ordinary Consistory. (One of the five, believe it or not, is a wanted man for corruption in his home country of Mali. But I digress…) In his homily to the five new cardinals, Francis touched on a theme that sounds positively Walfordian [No, it's typically Bergoglian farrago!]:

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The disciples themselves are distracted by concerns that have nothing to do with the “direction” taken by Jesus, with his will, which is completely one with that of the Father”. So it is that, as we heard, the two brothers James and John think of how great it would be to take their seats at the right and at the left of the King of Israel (cf. v. 37). They are not facing reality! They think they see, but they don’t. They think they know, but they don’t. They think they understand better than the others, but they don’t…

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Later, the new cardinals were taken by Bergoglio to stand before the Pope Emeritus and receive his blessing. Although I have not seen a full text of Pope Benedict’s comments to the cardinals, he did end with this: “In the end, the Lord will win. Thank you all”.

Sort of an ominous thing to say, don’t you think? Makes you wonder if it appears to the Pope Emeritus that the Lord isn’t winning now…

Bishop Paprocki has to defend
himself for being a Catholic Bishop
For this one, I’ll let the article at Catholic World Report tell the story:

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On June 12, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois issued a decree regarding same-sex “marriage” (SSM) and “related pastoral issues”. In it, he reaffirmed traditional Catholic teaching that marriage can only be “a covenant between one man and one woman …” and promulgated diocesan norms relating to SSM.

Norms included that no member of the diocesan clergy or staff is allowed to participate in a SSM service in any way, nor is church property to be used for SSM services or receptions. Persons in SSM relationships may not receive Holy Communion, and when in danger of death, persons in SSM relationships may not receive Holy Communion in the form of Viaticum unless they express repentance for their lifestyle.

Additionally, persons in SSM relationships may not receive a Catholic funeral unless they offered some signs of repentance before their death, nor may they serve as lectors or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion at Mass.

Children of parents in SSM relationships may receive the sacraments and attend Catholic schools; however, such parents should be aware that their children will be instructed in the fullness of Catholic teaching.

In a follow-up statement released June 23rd, Bishop Paprocki added that “the Church has not only the authority, but the serious obligation to affirm its authentic teaching on marriage and to preserve and foster the sacred value of the married state.”

Unsurprisingly, this caused an unholy hellstorm. And Bishop Paprocki — facing calls for his resignation, among other things — answered like a real Catholic shepherd:"The Catholic Church has been very clear for two thousand years that we do not accept same-sex “marriage,” yet many people seem to think that the Church must simply cave in to the popular culture now that same-sex “marriage” has been declared legal in civil law. From a pastor’s perspective, it is quite troubling to see that so many Catholics have apparently accepted the politically correct view of same-sex 'marriage'. This just shows how much work needs to be done to provide solid formation about the Catholic understanding of marriage.

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I think my favorite answers in the Paprocki interview, however, came at the end:

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Has the negative press on this issue been difficult for you personally, or have you come to see that it goes with the office you hold?
I’ll take my cue on that question from my patron saint, Sir Thomas More, who said, “I do not care very much what men say of me, provided that God approves of me.”
Any other thoughts?
Gay activists have harassed my staff and me with obscene telephone calls, e-mail messages and letters using foul language and profanity, supposedly in the name of love and tolerance. I am sorry that people around me have been subjected to such hateful and malicious language.
Is there anything you’d like to see Catholics who support the decision do to help?
Please pray for the conversion of sinners.

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Concelebration: Not a good idea but it may soon be law
that priests in Rome can no longer say their daily Mass in private
[So will Bergoglio now be concelebrating all his masses at Casa Santa Marta?]
At Rorate Caeli, it was revealed on Wednesday that there is a “working paper” of the Congregation for the Clergy “On Concelebration in the Colleges and Seminaries of Rome”, which is circulating in an unofficial way in the Roman colleges and seminaries.

What emerges clearly from this text is that Pope Francis wants to impose Eucharistic Concelebration in the colleges and seminaries of Rome, de facto, if not in principle, affirming that: [B]“the celebration in community must always be preferred to individual celebration”. [To think that for two millennia, every Catholic priest thought it the most essential part of his day to start it by celebrating his very own private Mass!]

On his blog, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says of the news:

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This of course is a direct contradiction to the Code of Canon Law can. 902, which guarantees that priests can celebrate Mass individually and privately. I think that concelebration should be safe, legal and rare. [A take-off from the facile line usually dropped by pro-abortion Catholic pols.]...

I am not opposed in principle to concelebration (which is a Novus Ordo thing, of course). I will concelebrate occasionally, for example, at ordinations to the priesthood and on Holy Thursday, especially with the bishop. Otherwise, I want to say my own Masses.

Concelebration is too prone to wandering minds, inattentiveness, sloppiness, abuses. I’ve seen horrid examples of this, including priests not saying anything at all during the consecration and bizarre handling of the Eucharist.

Can there be poorly celebrated private Masses? Sure. However, a man who is dedicated to saying Mass privately – because of devotion and because saying Mass is a good thing for him and for those for whom he offers it – is less likely to celebrate in a sloppy manner.

Moreover, it seems to me that a concelebrated Mass is one Mass, not many. Why is that a good thing? People can talk about priestly brotherhood and unity blah blah blah. Why are fewer Masses good for anyone? It seems to me that many Masses, properly and reverently celebrated, are good for the Church and for the world.

In addition, the imposition of concelebration for all priests in clerical residences in Rome will also undercut the right of priests to use the 1962 Roman Missal in accord with Summorum Pontificum. The use of the older, traditional Missale Romanum is on the rise among younger priests. Many seminarians want it. I’ll bet that scares the daylights out of some who are in power.

As one of my Roman correspondents put it: “This is scorched earth tactics. They’re going Carthage on everything distinctively Catholic to make sure we don’t turn back the Hegelian flow of history again.”

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Fr. Z also dishes on a bizarre proposal to only allow transitional deacons to be ordained if the laity of the parish where they’re serving approves. You can’t make this stuff up.

Thursday, June 29:
Cardinal Pell Accused
Cardinal Pell, [B]who has fought an uphill battle to bring reforms to the Vatican bank [And here I thought that IOR had been cleaned up enough before Pell went on to tackle other Vatican agencies!]was formally charged with sexual abuse this week after an investigation that has lasted years. [Correct me if I'm wrong, but the accusation seems to be that he touched two boys inappropriately, once, some 40 years ago. Not that I believe even that, but from the great to-do in Australia about it, one would think he had habitually raped them for years!] There are concerns that the media in his home country of Australia are pursuing the case so recklessly and unethically that he may never get a fair trial.

As the campaign against Cardinal Pell swings into high gear, we are left to wonder: is this the case of yet another high-ranking cleric guilty of unspeakable deeds, or is the man who was charged with the task of staring into the Pandora’s box of Vatican finances being destroyed because he found out things he was never meant to see? [I can't believe that intelligent people like George Weigel and Skojec are actually suggesting that Vatican officials who may resent Pell's financial disciplinary efforts could possibly have influenced the Australian magistrates and police to trump up their case against Pell - when this witch hunt started years before Pell came to work at the Vatican four years ago!]

Charlie Gard and the Pontifical Academy for Life
I am not well-informed about the situation with little Charlie Gard, the terminally-ill 10 month old in the UK whose parents wanted to bring him to the United States for experimental treatment, only to face denial from the European Court of Human Rights.

What I can tell you is that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia issued a statement regarding the case, and it amounts to a politely-worded version of: “Sorry parents, it’s sad, but you need to just suck it up and let him die”.

There are those who argue that the child’s condition is irreversible, and perhaps it is. But there is no reason why the parents should not be able to seek alternative treatment, or hope for a miracle. Science doesn’t always get things right. Nevertheless, champions of the new direction of the Vatican as regards pro-life issues seem to see nothing wrong with the approach:

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Austen Ivereigh @austeni
Whatever the parents decide must be right? That's relativism/subjectivism. Vatican + UK bishops articulating precisely RC teaching on life. twitter.com/nro/status/880959740679008256 …
10:21 PM - 30 Jun 2017 • Paddington, London

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The papal Twitter account unleashed its own tone deaf (and possibly unintentional) commentary on the situation this morning:

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Pope Francis
✔@Pontifex
To defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.
2:32 PM - 30 Jun 2017

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Friday, June 30:
Gaying it up in the Vatican
[Here, Skojec mostly quotes from Hilary White's presentation of the episode, which I posted in full, so I won't re-quote the excerpts Skojec uses... The new thing reported today, June 2, is that the gay Lothario who was once Cardinal Coccopalmiero's secretary, and whom he has apparently recommended to the pope to be made a bishop, was identified as Mons. Luigo Capozzi.]

The End of the Line for Cardinal Müller
Of course, the most noteworthy story of the week was the unceremonious departure of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. With his five-year mandate expiring tomorrow, July 2nd, Müller was told he wouldn’t be coming back to the job. [Skojec refers to his lengthy blog yesterday that in effect said 'Good riddance!' about the cardinal, and quotes from Rorate caeli's post reporting a German newspaper's interview with Mueller the day he was sacked, so I won't repeat those here. But Skojec adds a paragraph about the new CDF Prefect:]

Müller has already been replaced. His name is Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer. He is a Spanish Jesuit. (I’ll just wait here for your eyes to stop rolling). I don’t know much about him. I’ve already seen some people saying “we dodged a bullet.” My friend and colleague Oakes Spalding says he’s a universalist.

I think we need to take our time before we get excited and remember who appointed him and that mistakes are rarely made in the irreversible program of Church reform. Whatever the case, he’s very, very unlikely to make trouble for The Dictatorship of Mercy.

That’s the wrapup for this week. Let’s hope next week isn’t quite as…fruitful… [On the contrary, Bergoglio seems to be reaping more poisoned fruit each week from his four years of treasonous stewardship so far of the vineyard of the Lord.]

In removing Cardinal Müller,
Pope Francis is sending a powerful message
The Pope is making clear there is now only one center of power at the Vatican
[As if anyone had to be told this!]
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
CATHOLIC HERALD
Monday, 3 Jul 2017

There is an incident in the greatest film ever made, The Godfather, where a body turns up, and someone correctly says that it is a way of sending a message. It is a phrase that comes to mind in the wake of the removal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller: this is an act that constitutes a message. But what exactly?

The Pope has told Cardinal Müller that from now on all heads of dicastery will serve five years only.

[Let's see how that works out in practice:
Cardinal Amato, who was named by Benedict XVI to head the Congregation for Sainthood causes on July 9, 2008, was entitled to serve until July 9, 2013, and yet, on March 16, 2013, when the new pope confirmed most of the Curial officials in place at the time, Amato was the only one who was placed 'on hold' with the notice of 'donec alter provideatur'(until otherwise provided) notice he got from this pope. Yet for some reason, he has now continued to be Prefect for another four years this July 9, without a reappointment from the pope, who has not even invoked the age-75 retirement rule for Amato who turned 79 last month. He may even get to serve a full five-year term by next year, even if he is compelled to resign when he turns 80!

More importantly, Cardinal Ouellet was named Prefect of Bishops by Benedict XVI on June 30, 2010. Like all the other Curial officials, his appointment was considered terminated when Benedict XVI resigned, but Pope Francis 'confirmed' him in the position on March 16, 2013, as was the now terminated Cardinal Mueller. Yet Ouellet's original 5-year term would have ended on June 30, 2015 - i.e., two years before Mueller's did - at which time he should have been reappointed or dismissed by this pope, but obviously he is still in place and I do not see any record that he was reappointed at all.

If the papal confirmation of the Curial appointments on March 16, 2013, meant that each official was thereby starting a new five-year term, then Mueller should have been good to stay until March 16, 2018. Amato, Ouellet and Mueller, BTW, were not only Benedict XVI appointees but also considered among the foremost 'Ratzingerians' in the Catholic hierarchy, even if Ouellet immediately turned his coat after March 13, 2013.

Consider the first dicastery head named by this Pope on Sept 21, 2013 - now Cardinal Beniamino Stella to replace the demoted Cardinal Mauro Piacenza as head of the Congregation for the Clergy, and considered by most Vatican insiders as the 'stealth figure' among the pope's closest advisers. Does anyone think this pope will compel him to leave when his term ends in 2018? As likely as that he will compel Cardinal Parolin to leave State in October 2018 when his five-year term ends!

So, Fr Lucie-Martin, there is not necessarily a rule, because all totalitarian leaders, whether czar or Caudillo Maximo de la Iglesia Catolica, can and usually are arbitrary.]

So, that is the first message, directed to other Vatican chiefs – watch out, your time is short, and you can and will be removed at the end of your term. No longer will heads of dicastery stay in post for decades, as did, for example, Cardinal Ratzinger. From now on, expect to be moved around like pieces on a chessboard, because in the Vatican there is only one centre of power that counts, and it is not yours.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has traditionally been regarded as “la suprema”. Once upon a time, everything that emerged from the Vatican had to be passed first by the CDF. By dismissing the head of the most important department of the Vatican, the Pope is reminding everyone who is really supreme.

The demotion affects not only Cardinal Müller but the entire CDF, for the entire department is being cut down to size. Indeed, as has been apparent in this papacy so far, the CDF is not what it was, but has been repeatedly sidelined.

The Pope has not moved a big hitter in to take Cardinal Müller’s place, but rather moved up Cardinal Müller’s number two, who has been in post for some time, and who could have had no ambitions of promotion, being 73 years old (two years off retirement age), besides being a rather humble and self-effacing character.

Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, though a competent theologian [and perhaps, more important for this pope, a Jesuit], is a low-key appointment who is never going to rock the boat, or cause any embarrassment to the Pope. His appointment means the virtual neutralisation for the foreseeable future of the CDF as a possible hotbed of opposition.

Long gone are the days when the supreme ruler of Rome could have those who had lost his confidence thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, and gone too are the days when the Pope’s enemies were discovered floating in the Tiber.

Cardinal Müller lives on and will do so in Rome, aged 69, a relatively young and very underemployed Cardinal. This may not be such a good idea from the point of view of those who want to crush all opposition.

Neither should it be forgotten that Cardinal Müller has friends. His departure is a message to them. Chief of Cardinal Müller’s friends is, of course, his mentor, Benedict XVI. The cardinal’s passing is surely a sign that the old regime is now gone forever and that the changes wrought by Pope Francis are irreversible. [It is shocking that someone like Lucie-Smith should think this! If that is how he thinks, then his title ought to have been 'Cardinal Mueller's dismissal means the Bergoglio agenda has triumphed irreversibly'

Other friends of the cardinal may well tremble at that thought.

THE ENTIRE CHURCH SHOULD TREMBLE TO ITS VERY FOUNDATIONS, AND WE MUST ALL ASSAULT HEAVEN WITH PRAYERS TO SAVE US FROM EVER MAKING BERGOGLIO'S TEMPORARY 'TAKEOVER/MAKEOVER' OF THE ONE TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST 'IRREVERSIBLE'!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/07/2017 22:42]

Charlie Gard and the pope:
Finally a message
that's too little too late
by Marco Tosatti
Translated from
STILUM CURIAE
July 3, 2017

Too little, and we fervently hope, not too late. We refer to the clumsy way the Vatican and the pope have handled the highly-charged story of baby Charlie Gard.

The Vatican line consisted of three points essentially:
1. The statement by Mons. Paglia as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life – that we commented on last week.
2. A papal tweet on June 30 about defending life in general, without mentioning Charlie Gard: “Defending human life, especially when it is threatened by disease, is a commitment of love that God entrusts to every man”.
3. And finally Sunday afternoon, a statement from Greg Burke that said:

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The Holy Father is following with affection and emotion the events regarding little Charlie Gard and expresses his nearness to his parents. He prays for them and hopes that their desire to accompany and care for their own son until the very end is not ignored.

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.
The Vatican press statement sounds like a disavowal of what the Catholic bishops of England and Wales as well as Mons. Paglia have said regarding the desire and natural right of parents to pursue every possibility raising hope that their baby’s life may be saved.

Some considerations:
For days and days the Catholic world has mobilized worldwide against euthanasia for baby Charlie. And it began with a rosary said by the faithful in St. Peter’s Square right under ‘the pope’s window’ in the Apostolic Palace. Not seen, of course, by the Pontiff from his bunker in Casa Santa Marta where he is surrounded by his faithful and less-than-faithful.

But what was little reported is that at the pope’s hotel as well as at the British Embassy in Rome, there had been a deluge of telephone calls that were dealt with differently as the situation worsened. [Antonio Socci wrote about this yesterday before the Vatican statement came out in the afternoon. I shall post his column when translated.]

The slowness of the papal reaction makes us think of two things: First, that the information received by the pope about baby Charlie was strongly conditioned by the reportage of the mainstream media, which reported little or none at all about him because it seems they are more interested in huge pop concerts attracting fans by the droves. And the pope has told us he only reads one newspaper – Il Messaggero – and never watches TV.

The pope’s seeming information vacuum is reinforced by the attitude of his many spin doctors and communications janissaries. Just read the statements made by some bishops and priests expressing their fear that the Charlie Gard case would ‘politically instrumentalized’ to understand that they think the case is an issue for the ‘right’ – namely, that Charlie’s parents insisted on giving every chance they could, no matter how slight, to their baby, whereas the thanatological bureaucracy and judiciary in Britain and the European Court decided NO! Perhaps the anti-‘right’ bishops were thinking – after all, isn’t Trump, that dreaded monster, a pro-life advocate? We can’t be retro now, can we?

This kind of labeling – oh how ideological this papal regime is! – has contributed to a failure by the general public to appreciate that this fight is not just about Charlie, but about the right of every ailing person not to have his life or death terminated by ‘official’ orders regardless of who seeks the termination, including everyone who claims they only mean well.

Therefore, even an issue and a battle that appears eminently Catholic – two parents who are fighting for their baby’s life [and whose hope of seeking advanced if experimental treatment for him was boosted by the fact that within days, wellwishers had contributed some 1.4 million pounds (that’s more than US $1.8 million at today’s rate)to help pay for the costs] – only caught the attention of this Pontiff rather late.

And even so, it’s not as if he put himself all out for them. It was only after the Internet exploded with messages from Catholics stunned that the pope had not even referred to Charlie at his noonday Angelus yesterday that Vatican press director Greg Burke issued the statement, whose words betray all the effort made to overcome the embarrassment of the situation. The statement was by Greg Burke!.

The pope of the unexpected, the very embodiment of his pet concept ‘god of surprises’, of cold calls placed to whomever he pleases anywhere on earth, chose not to put anything of himself into this PR response. Or at least we have not been told. Maybe he called the baby’s parents – we don’t know. [We do know. As of yesterday afternoon, the Daily Mail simply reported that “even the pope is praying for Charlie” referring to the Vatican statement, and not to a telephone call to his parents or perhaps even maybe to the Nuncio in London to stand in as papal surrogate!]

This has not been a happy episode - not for the Church, for the pope, or for Vatican communications.

The pope's handling of the Charlie Gard case is an example cited by Sandro Magister in a short piece he posted yesterday about the pet causes that this pope is 'institutionalizing' - or seeking to institutionalize, at least. But I don't quite agree with Magister's title - Bergoglio is not 'preparing the place for his successor'. Like Obama and other 'legacy'-minded politicos, he is seeking to self-define and prepare his place in history.

How Francis is preparing
the place for his successor
by Sandro Magister
SETTIMO CIELO
July 2, 2017

Francis has no desire to go down in history as a 'transitional' pope. That which he is doing, he wants to survive his departure. And to make sure of this, he is institutionalizing the things dearest to him, he is making them stable with enough support to keep them moving forward on their own.

The World Day of the Poor is one of such creations, officially canonized a few weeks ago. Jorge Bergoglio’s [highly erroneous and fallacious] idea that the Church is like a “field hospital” will be embodied from now on every year, in November, in a celebration of works of mercy on behalf of the hungry, naked, homeless, strangers, imprisoned.

After which, it will be difficult for his successors not to show the same ostentatious concern, such as eating together with 'the poor'. [Benedict XVI did that on several occasions but they were reported as normal events in the life of the pope, any pope, without any attempt or need to beat his breasts - or for sycophants to beat their breasts in his behalf - to proclaim "See how compassionate and loving I am!"]

Pope Francis will run the dress rehearsal in Bologna on October 1, where the program for his pastoral visit shows that at noon the pope will be “at lunch with the poor in the Basilica of San Petronio.”

Then there are the “Scholas Occurrentes,” a network of schools that, born in Buenos Aires when Bergoglio was archbishop of that city, now connects more than 400,000 institutes all over the world, no matter whether Catholic or secular. [That really is quite an exaggeration of their extent so far. Just go to their website t get an idea of how limited their reach still is compared to their ambitions! I was shocked myself because with all the hype, I had thought it would be enormous by now - perhaps as big as Caritas Internationalis. But it ain't - yet. ]

There is nothing religious in the meetings among these schools. What holds sway are words and concepts like “dialogue,” “listening,” “encounter,” “bridges,” “peace,” “integration.” And even skimming the now numerous talks Francis has given to the Scholas, his silence on the Christian God, on Jesus and the Gospel, is practically sepulchral.

But in spite of that, Bergoglio has set up the “Scholas Occurrentes” as a “pious foundation” of pontifical right, hosts their world conferences at the Vatican, and three weeks ago, on June 9, inaugurated an office for them within the pontifical palace, which will make it more complicated to dislodge them in the future.

The turning point is no small matter. For centuries, the schools of the Society of Jesus have been the beacon of Catholic education. On the other hand, these “Scholas” so dear to the Jesuit pope make more news for the frequent soccer games “for peace” that he sponsors with Maradona, Messi, or Ronaldinho at his side, as with the bizarre encounter one year ago in the ring in Las Vegas - this too convened by the pope under the banner of dialogue - between a Catholic and a Muslim boxer, both of whom were received at Santa Marta after the Muslim, who lost by knockout in the sixth round, had been released from the hospital.

In the political field the same thing is happening. Not a year goes by in which Francis does not convene around him a world meeting of what he calls the “popular movements.”

This network of movements did not exist before him - far from it. It is another of his inventions. He has entrusted the selection of its membership to an Argentine trade unionist friend of his, Juan Grabois, who fishes each time from among the diehards of the historic anti-capitalist and anti-globalist assemblies of Seattle and Porto Alegre, with a side order of indigenous and environmental groups and with prominent guests like Bolivian president and coca grower Evo Morales, or former president of Uruguay José "Pepe" Mujica, with a past as a guerrilla, who has now retired to live a frugal life on a farm.

To this gathering, Bergoglio gives fiery speeches every time of thirty pages and more, which are the quintessence of his general political vision, harnessing the people as a “mystical category” called to redeem the world.

There have been four convocations so far: the first in Rome in 2014, the second in Bolivia in 2015, the third again in Rome in 2016, the fourth - on a regional scale - in Modesto in the United States last February, with the pope joining this time by video conference. Others will follow.

But that’s not all. For his successor, Francis has prearranged even more. He has dismissed all the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life and has appointed new ones.

With the difference that while before they were all adamantly united against abortion, artificial procreation, and euthanasia, today that is no longer so, each member of the academy thinks his own way. Because what must be put in first place is dialogue.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s intention to “institutionalize” the things dear to him has not escaped the American vaticanista John Allen:
> We’re watching Pope Francis institutionalize his vision

POSTSCRIPT – This note was already written and published when the drama over the case of little Charlie Gard was at its height, with Pope Francis silent in spite of the universal and spontaneous wave of appeals for him to intervene "ad personam" in defense of that child's life:
> Il piccolo Charlie e noi
(Little Charlie and us)
And also in spite of the seriousness of the legal objections against the verdict that in fact has sentenced Charlie to death:
> In nome della legge: Isacco, Charlie Gard e gli affanni della modernità
(In the name of the law: Isaac, Charlie Gard and the stresses of modernity)

This is a case that cannot help but have an impact on the "fortunes" of this pontificate. All the more so, if a comparison is made between the energy that Pope Francis has exerted for the "Scholas Occurrentes" and other initiatives on a similar level, precious as can be to him, and his astonishing silence on crucial questions like the emblematic one of Charlie Gard.

[Well, he has broken the silence but he had to be forced to do it... Because, among other things, it implies he disapproves a decision made by the European Court of Human Rights - and we all know how Bergoglio finds everything EU and EU-related sacrosanct. Yet he could have had Burke include in the statement released yesterday that "it is not right for courts to decide to put an end to the life of anyone with an immediate prognosis of death by stopping life support, because that would be euthanasia by judicial verdict."]

Here is Socci's commentary from Saturday:

Baby Charlie and us
How the 'people for life' checkmated
the pope for his obstinate silence
by Antonio Socci
Translated from his blog
LO STRANIERO
July 1, 2017

The tragedy of little Charlie Gard has stirred the hearts of many, Catholic as well as secular. There has been an additional element of torment in that at the very least, his parents would like to bring him home to die [if they are not allowed to bring him to the US for a possible treatment].

On Friday, as the hours passed, a wave of emotion and pain overcame so many consciences that telephone calls to the hospital where he is confined and to British embassies in many capitals piled up, such that the hospital has now agreed to grant ‘a few more days’ to the child.

Hundreds of prayer vigils have been held spontaneously in many places, and in Italy, many Catholics virtually had the Vatican switchboard in a state of siege - especially those at the Secretariat of State and Casa Santa Marta – pleading urgently for Pope Francis to intervene in behalf of the baby and his parents.

This pope speaks about everything everyday. Even most recently, criticizing those who dye their hair (“I am pained when I see people who dye their hair”) [He must have been in constant spasms of pain on the streets of Buenos Aires where many dark-haired Argentine women choose to be blonde!]. But the pope has refused obstinately to say a word in defense of Charlie’s right to life ‘to its natural end’. (A silence similar to that he keeps regarding Asia Bibi and all other cases that are not politically correct.)

But one would think that the life of Charlie [and speaking out against euthanasia in any form] would be more important to the Vicar of Christ on earth than people who dye their hair.

On the web, the Vatican telephone numbers have been circulated with an invitation to call on the pope to speak out. A deluge of telephone calls descended on Casa Santa Marta, and the sisters at the switchboard have said so.

Some try multiple times to get through to somebody. After a while, the sisters started giving answers they were instructed to give.
Caller: “I am calling urgently to ask the pope to intervene in a concrete way to help save the life of Charlie Gard”.
Answer: “Yes, the pope is praying for everyone who needs to take a decision.”
Caller: “Look, the decision has been taken [in a British court and by the ECJ]. The pope must intervene now.”
Answer: [After an embarrassed silence] Yes, I understand… Let us pray”

Some have said that the pope and Mons. Paglia should step out of their safehouses of power, others that they seem to be far from the hearts of the Christian people and that they must listen to the People of God, and pointing out how much indignation there is about this.
Answer: “Very well. I will try to pass it on to someone.” But no one answers in the offices she calls.

After a while, the sisters started to say, “Yes, the pope has been notified”. But then, someone at Casa Santa Marta, one of those who always wants to get praise and applause from the pope started to get worked up. So the sisters got new instructions to say “Please do not jam our telephone lines. Mons. Paglia has already given a statement about this.”

But it was precisely because Paglia’s statements had disconcerted many Catholics that they wanted a clear word from Bergoglio in defense of Charlie’s right to life. Many have been informed on the web, in part thanks to the efforts of life advocates Assuntina Morresi and Eugenia Roccella, who have made sure to disseminate the court verdicts and express the Catholic reaction.

Those who have reacted represent the generations that grew under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who have been sufficiently warned and vigilant against the dangerous assent that has arisen in the West to an anti-life ideology [John Paul II called it ‘the culture of death’, no less.] In this case, they all feel “I am Charlie Gard”.

These are generations that remember the spiritual testament of John Paul II in the following prayer-promise:

---

We shall rise up to protest every time human life is threatened…
We shall rise up every time the sacredness of human life is attacked even before birth.
We shall rise up and proclaim that no one has the authority to destroy unborn life…
We shall rise up whenever a baby is considered as a burden or merely as a way to satisfy emotion
And we shall cry out that every baby is a unique and irrepetible gift from God...
We shall rise up when the weak, the aged and the dying are abandoned in solitude
And we shall proclaim that they are worthy of love, care and respect.

---

It is the people for life who, by themselves (without leaders), have raised their voices. It is they who want to make known to the First Tenant of Casa Santa Marta that he is not on Peter’s Chair to care about mosquitoes and small worms, as he expressed in Laudato si.

And enough of trivial attacks against people who dye their hair! The pope must defend human life and the right to life, starting with the most defenseless.

Charlie Gard inspired a sort of insurrection on the Internet, a kind of “Now enough of this !” ultimatum from the People of God. Yesterday, by cellphone and Internet, people were invited to a prayer vigil at 7 pm in St. Peter’s Square around the obelisk.

But the people for life have been met by a wall of indifference and hostility that begins at Casa Santa Marta – as with all the Family Day rallies held during this pontificate. He is not building bridges to them – only walls.

Yet, some prelates have been constrained to take the right position. The new president of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Bassetti, perhaps by an impulse of formed conscience that made him forget for a moment the Bergoglianism he has acquired, and reminded him he was made a bishop by Benedict XVI, was forced by popular pressure to make a clear statement: "This heart-rending episode touches the soul of every person and cannot leave anyone indifferent. Every action that puts an end to life is a false conception of freedom. Every human life must be welcomed and defended from its beginning to its natural end.” Not very much, but it is something. [Actually, I would light a candle for Bassetti for having the courage and independence to say this.]

Even the President of Italy has behaved better than Bergoglio on this. More than 5,000 Italians sent him an appeal to intervene in favor of Charlie. He was neither deaf nor indifferent: he immediately asked his people to examine how his office could help in the ways suggested. And when nothing doable was found, he answered the petition through one of his policy advisers the day before the European Court handed down its verdict.

I saw a copy of the answer, and the letter says that the President acknowledges that

---

“the sensitive and tragic case of little Charlie Gard represents a particularly painful episode that touches the conscience of everyone of us and raises difficult questions… We immediately looked deeply into the possibility of a political intervention or something that has to do with the ‘status civitatis’ of the baby, but both options unfortunately could not be pursued, as much because of the imminence of the court verdict and the fact that a British court has also decided about one of its citizens.”

---

The letter ends with an expression of ‘personal nearness and solidarity’ with the petitioners and ‘ideally, with baby Charlie and his family”.

It may seem little but in these days, a bit of humanity and sensitivity does much.

P.S. At 8:30 pm last night (June 30), the pope sort of surrendered to the siege with a tweet that does not even mention Charlie: “Defending human life, especially when it is threatened by disease, is a commitment of love that God entrusts to every man”. Well, the ‘ugly’ impression remains. It is not what a true pope does.

Socci's comment above that this pope does not build bridges to people he disagrees with - he builds walls instead, is a concrete refutation of a favorite Bergoglian cliche about bridges and walls. Very apropos, a French psychologist who follows Beatrice's website benoit-et-moi.fr/2017 wrote her the ff essay in reply to an article she had posted about the Global Imbeciles who seem to rule the public discourse today. I will paste the reaction first, because it is something that anyone who calls himself a friend of Bergoglio ought to point out to him... But then he has said he is too old to change his ways. Is he too old even to acquire some common sense?

On walls and bridges:
From absurdity to perverseness
By Yann C.
Translated from
BENOIT-ET-MOI
June 28, 2017

“It’s better to build bridges than walls” has become a cliché which illustrates the daily dumbing-down to which we have now become victims because the statement is both stupid and perverse.

It is stupid on two levels. First, literally. Since walls and bridges each have their uses, they cannot be directly compared – it’s like saying it’s better to make forks than spoons. Moreover, many bridges are constructed with walls [indeed most permanent bridges are, otherwise vehicles are more likely to drive off them], which makes the imagery more absurd.

With such a weak basis, it would be surprising for anyone to construct a metaphor which can stand – but that is what its advocates maintain.

Of course, the idea intended to come across is that it is better to bring people together instead of separating them on both social and psychological levels, as in immigration frontiers. The error is gross if not monstruous. Any tie, in general, can also be destructive and evil.

The metaphor of bridges marvelously illustrates that, in the context of the numerous wars and invasions which have always afflicted mankind. Aggression requires contact and ties, albeit negative. Therefore the use of bridges, whether material or psychological, is a priority for the exercise of evil, as well as of good.

From this arises the fact that one of the most current interventions to prevent psycho-social risks is to recommend a very strict framework (i.e., ‘walls’) of communication in dealing with persons who take a perverse attitude and who can and may destroy others.

Why is it that reflections which are so elementary do not suffice to stop the circulation of opinions that ARE more manifestly wrong than saying ‘the earth is flat’?

One could write books and books about the intellectual degradation and emotional manipulation that characterizes public debate today. My intention is to highlight the religious dimensions underlying this phenomenon.

Since Greco-Christian metaphysics has gone out fashion or has been banned from current thinking, and the human being is unable to do without a sense of the sacred [Is that an established psychological fact, because it does not seem evident at all today!], a polytheistic religion with numerous gods has been put in place: money, but also progress (above all a rather vulgate semblance of ‘human sciences’) where words and rfelationships (sometimes the law) are blindly adulated.

And the consequence of such a metaphysical debilitation is the construction of a boulevard for perverse mechanisms, temporary or otherwise. The statement we are examining is a good example.

Yet what does the cliche mean, in fact, but putting up a wall? One that separates supposed good (bridges) from supposed evil (walls). It is a metaphor that shoots itself in the foot. Yet one can make a similar analysis for other much touted clichés of our day such as those promoting ‘openness’ and ‘diversity’.

The article to which it reacted:

The Global Imbecile is in power
by Marcello Veneziani
Translated from
IL TEMPO
June 9, 2017

Every morning, afternoon and evening, wherever you may be, and with whatever information source you may be linked – video, radio, newspapers, and the Internet, but also films, concerts, homilies, lessons in school or at university, institutional discourses – there is a Global Imbecile that always says the same thing: “Let us tear down the walls – no more frontiers between peoples, faiths, races, sexes and homosexes – no more closed nations, genders, families and traditions – everything should be open to everyone in the world”.

We are told this as if it was the expression of a particularly sharp and unusual personal opinion, an original one – which feigns rebelling against the ‘conformism of closedness’ and against the ‘power of fascism’(though that ideology has been dead for 72 years), while, he the courageous Imbecile, is unbiased and open, he does not confirm, his mind is open, his heart is open, his arms are wide open – he is a citizen of ‘the world’. How strong he is, defying the ‘powerful’!

Yet he is merely repeating ad infinitum, as the pre-cast Imbecile he is, the Compiled Catechism of Cretins Aligned to the Canon of the Times. All for one and one for all. The Imbecile is global because he knows where ‘the world’ is going and he feels a citizen of that world. The planetary idiot has a thousand clones, perhaps millions or tens of millions.

Then there is the Imbecile Singer, inspired by the god of artists, who uses the stage to proclaim that he too sings against all walls, all racism, all discrimination. Our hero! Standing in for everyone!

Then there is the Imbecile Actor or Director who uses any platform to hammer home his ‘original’ and deeply-felt message, which is perfectly identical to what the Imbecile Singer claims, but which is delivered as if mankind were hearing the message for the first time. “I don’t like walls, and I do not like those who raise walls”. Hurray for him, what an anti-conformist!

And we come to the Imbecile Intellectual, prophet and opinionist, who, in order to distinguish himself from the coarse and ignorant vulgate, also says the same thing: walls are to pee on, death to racism, death to Hitler, long live the blacks, the gays and the trans-sexuals, and welcome to all.

Now the Collective Idiot, the moronic version of the post-Gramscian Collective Intellectual, does not think on his own, but simply downloads the Global Ideology App which generates [all-too-predictable] answers automatically. With no lack of individual imbeciles who will re-post or recite the identical pissoir stuff against all walls.

The president or prime minister who dons the robes of the Institutional Imbecile expresses the same identical ideas, if not the identical words, in the intrepid manner of someone who defies the Strong Powers (at whose feet he lies servile, nothing more than a doormat).

You will not find a film, telefilm, concert, threatrical or sport show, skit, or TV homily that does not harp on the battle between Good and Evil, in set categories: ‘The open-minded and the generous’ against ‘ the Closed and the Obtuse’, Welcomers vs Racists, Homophiles against Homophobes, Xenophiles vs Xenophobes and Negrophobes.

The bad ones being the Wall people, while the good ones are those of the Telepass [an Italian electronic toll collection system which therefore implies roads open to everywhere, as long as you pay the toll].

The beasts to be chased out in this Imbecile Ideology are almost always vague, anonymous, almost mythical. And yet, the bad ones are supposed to be always in the dark, conspiring in the shadows, faceless but wearing ridiculous masks. Today those masks are Trumputin, Le Pen in France, Salvini in Italy.

You listen to one of the Imbecile Discourses, you switch channels, and you hear the same thing. You shut off the TV and turn off the radio – still the same. You open a newspaper – you get the same familiar Single Line [the French term unique pensee really says it best, to describe the single line of thought, sometimes called ‘the party line’, taken by the Dominant Mentality, which is, of course, the older term for this writer’s Global Imbecile... Some English dictionaries have translated unique pensee as ‘mainstream thought’, which is weak and imprecise, or ‘hegemonic thought’ which is a fancier term for ‘dominant mentality’. So let’s stay with unique pensee.] At school, they teach the same thing, and at university, they use fancier words. And of course, the Hot-Air Balloons of the media, conventional and electronic, belch out endless verbiage to purvey the same Single Model.

None of them is ever touched by doubts or any questions whatsoever. [They cannot be wrong! If they are not right, then no one else is!] But it is you who must ask yourself: Am I hallucinating, or are they all just the same person, the Global Imbecile, who simply changes clothes, persona and occupation, while he repeats the Identical Discourse ad infinitum?

Followed by a second question: Aren’t we supposed to be in a democracy – which means freedom and pluralism, i.e, differing opinions that are free to be different? The Imbeciles do not believe in Truth, because they are relativist, but woe if you should dissent from the Obligatory Discourse with its peroration in an anti-Wall fervorino!

Is it really possible that everyone should think in the same way, conforming, aligned and homogenized, who maintain that the most urgent and most important thing in the world today is to make sure everyone gets the Message of the Single Line?

Then one would rightly ask whether the Global Imbecile in this network of conformity is, not, in fact, the Big Brother of our time? The many-headed spokesman of the Single Non-Thought which is that of the new globally totalitarian regime? And that therefore it is that Total Uniformity into which everyone is falling in line that is the miserable priority of our time?

I don’t know about you but I can no longer continue to take more of the Global Imbeciles who recite the Single and Identical Discourse ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

Criminals Damian Dignan, left, and Lyndon Monument, right, accuse Cardinal Pell of touching them in a swimming pool four decades ago. Really, guys?

The media’s Cardinal Pell disinformation campaign
by THEMEDIAREPORT.COM
JUNE 30, 2017

The media is having a field day reporting that Australia's Cardinal George Pell has been accused of child abuse. From the way the media is telling it, one would think that this abuse was something that happened somewhat recently, and the acts of abuse have been well established.

But here are the facts the media is burying and as we know them so far:
1. The accusations date back four decades ago, to the late 1970s.
2. The alleged "abuse" so far does not maintain any explicit sexual acts. After an investigation that went on for nearly two years, it appears two men accuse Cardinal Pell of touching them "inappropriately" while splashing and playing games in a swimming pool 40 years ago.
3. One of the accusers, Lyndon Monument, is an admitted drug addict and has served almost a year in prison for violently assaulting a man and a woman over a drug debt. Monument has also accused a boyhood teacher of forcing him to perform sex acts. What an unlucky guy!
4. The other accuser, Damian Dignan, also has a criminal history for assault and drunk driving. He has also accused a female teacher of beating him during class when he was a youth. He says he lives alone, suffers from leukemia, and has "lost everything" due to alcohol abuse. In other words, this dude has nothing to lose at all.
5. Back in 2002, Cardinal Pell faced an abuse accusation dating back to 1962. The accuser was "a career criminal. He had been convicted of drug dealing and involved in illegal gambling, tax evasion and organized crime in a labor union." He also had an impressive 39 court convictions under his belt at the time. A real winner, indeed. A judge cleared Pell after an inquiry.

It is very likely – in fact, it is almost certain – that other shifty blokes will climb out of the gutter to "substantiate" the ridiculous accusations against Pell and accuse him of other salacious acts.

We're not buying any of this. We pray that justice will be served, but we doubt it. TheMediaReport.com has been observing the climate against the Catholic Church in Australia for some time now, and we have never seen anything like it.

Imagine the hatred against the Church fromm the Boston Globe and the New York Times combined and spread out over an entire country. The climate is truly insane.

Australian law enforcement is claiming that Pell's case is being treated like any other historical offense. No, it isn't. Police do not give a rip about someone coming forward to claim someone touched them over their bathing suit 40 years ago. But this is a Catholic priest, and a high-ranking one at that. This is a big fish in the eyes of law enforcement.

Will another innocent cleric be dragged off to prison for crimes he never committed? We believe so, but we hope we're wrong.
The only thing for certain is that the haters of the Church will enjoy every moment of this.

THEMEDIAREPORT.COM was founded in 2004 by David F. Pierre, Jr. and has since grown into an educational cooperative to chronicle and monitor the mainstream media's coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse narrative. Pierre Dave is the leading observer of the media's coverage of the Catholic Church 'abuse narrative' - in which the media narrative of how evil they wish to portray the Church has been the story rather than objective reporting of verifiable facts. Dave is the author of three critically acclaimed books, 'Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church,' 'Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories,' and 'Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe's Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church.'

It turns out that THE MEDIAREPORT.COM's overview above of the Pell case apparently only skims the surface of the public trial by media that has grown monstrous and unprecedented beyond imagining!

If one wants an idea of the extent and degree - and overall implausibility - of the accusations of sexual abuse against Pell
that appear to have been 'codified' into a still growing canon of spurious claims avidly purveyed by the Australian media, read this
article at FIRST THINGS:
www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/07/the-case-against-cardi...

It is based on a recent book written by one Louise Mulligan, Catholic hater, purporting to be written from the 'complainants' point of view'.

Its publication was advanced from July to May (2017) presumably to influence the deliberations of the civil authorities. Once Pell had been charged, its publisher removed it from local bookshops to avoid influencing the deliberations of jury members. But its claims have already been broadcast throughout the Australian media.

Julia Yost who wrote the article says:

---

Australian civil authorities have yet to announce the number and nature of the offenses with which Pell is charged. But allegations against Pell have been accumulating for years. He stands publicly accused of complicity in a sex abuse coverup in the diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s and early 1980s; complicity in a sex abuse coverup in the archdiocese of Melbourne in the late 1980s and 1990s; and various counts of child molestation, assault, and indecent exposure, from 1961 through 1997.

---

I must say I had not realized how the 'case against Pell' had ballooned to such proportions, but the allegations described by Milligan in her book as the basis for these charges are even more preposterous. Just reading the excerpts Yost examines from the book made me want to immerse myself in a bath of Lysol afterwards to disinfect myself from the utter filth of Milligan's malice.

[I would urge those like George Weigel and Seve Skojec who openly say that Vatican prelates who have resented Pell's clean-up job at the Secretariat of the Economy (he's been there only since January 2014) probably had something to do with the present embarrassment of Pell. How could they have had anything to do with the allegations spelled out in Milligan's out-and-out axing (is that a stronger word than hatchet job) that drums up fiction dating as far back as 40 years ago with the most recent allegation dating to 1997? These stories were out there long before Pell became a Vatican official in 2013. If not that, then there is no possible influence that even the most powerful of them (mostly Italians by media accounts) could have had on the Australian police, magistrates and media, to accelerate their get-Pell campaign because they have been after his pelt for decades.

The only effect I can imagine of Pell's image as a non-nonsense reformer at the Vatican is one of reverse psychology: His enemies in Australian and in the Vatican may think that Pell's work at financial reform is objectively 'a good thing' that could militate against the evil ogre image that Australians have swallowed about Pell. So the current frenzy to figuratively ram him down into the ground, stomp on his head and grind his face in the dust is meant to erase any possible trace in the public mind of any good that Pell may have done throughout his long career.

The context of the apparently still-worsening public hysteria in Australia against Pell - as stand-in for the Catholic Church - is described in the following article:

Cardinal Pell and 'internalized Catholicphobia'
by Michael Warren Davis
THE REMNANT
July 3, 2017

One’s first day at college is always disorienting – particularly if it takes place halfway ‘round the world. As an American student at the University of Sydney, everything had shock value: Oxbridgian limestone castles stand proudly next to slouching palm trees, which are home to flocks of cackling kookaburras. (Very ugly, mean-spirited birds, by the way.)

But nothing was quite so strange as the sight of twenty students dressed in lace and robes marching slowly across campus. Some carried a canopy; one swung a thurible; another held the Cross aloft. And, in their midst, a priest clutching a monstrance. I quickly came to realize that Eucharistic processions were a regular occurrence at the USyd, thanks to the Catholic Society and its marvellous chaplains.

The Society really is a treasure. Despite being an Episcopalian (albeit a traditionally-minded one) at the time, I quickly realised I could do worse than to make friends with its members. And so I did. Those friendships remain strong even two years after I graduated and repatriated. They were crucial in my decision to become Catholic, and a traditionalist specifically: most of them are parishioners in the majestic Latin Mass parish in Lewisham.

One of the chaplains, a jovial friar of the old order, would tag along on pub night to keep us out of trouble… and maybe sing a bar or two of the Kaiserhymne.

I hope this is a pleasant surprise to those of you who’ve come to expect a very different experience with college chaplaincies, at least in secular schools: guitars, tube-tops, etc. There are any number of reasons why USyd got it right when so many others have gotten it wrong, but I think it has to do mostly with the great personal interest George Cardinal Pell took in the Society.

In fact, one of his last engagements before shipping off to the Vatican was a dinner party he threw for some of the students he’d mentored. He was a sterling influence on them, as he has been for generations of Australian Catholics.

But the Society paid a steep price for his friendship. When the Royal Commission flared up and His Eminence became the victim of a media witch-hunt, the same toxic atmosphere descended on campus. It was as though all Catholic students were culpable in Cardinal Pell’s “crimes” – crimes the Commission hasn’t a single shred of evidence to prove. The open hostility from left-wing Arts majors was shocking. Even conservative Protestants scorned them. Many Catholic students with political ambitions quietly distanced themselves from both the Society and His Eminence.

In my experience, the Aussie faithful know he’s innocent, or at least that he’s been treated disgracefully. They realize that the standard of justice – innocent until proven guilty – no longer applies to Catholics. Our priests are automatically assumed to be pedophiles, and laymen are assumed to be complicit in their perversion. This is nothing new: we all remember Blessed Cardinal Newman having to defend himself against accusations of “effeminacy” for remaining celibate, even as an Anglican.

What’s novel, and disturbingly so, is how deeply this prejudice runs among Catholics themselves. One hesitates to monger grievance, but the phrase “Catholicphobia” – perhaps even “internalized Catholicphobia”! – leaps to mind. You see it across the Australian media.

All of Cardinal Pell’s most shameless and venomous critics invariably begin their attacks by saying something like: “I was raised Catholic, and though I don’t practice myself, I had a very devout grandmother. There are lots of things about Catholicism I still admire. However…” Then they go on to tell abject lies, or else spout nonsense about sexual repression and the patriarchy.

In fact, most of the Western Church suffers from a rather severe case of internalized Catholicphobia. While our Holy Mother has done a sterling job of protecting children from abuse, many “reforms” have badly overshot the mark.

Except in TLM parishes, altar boys are all but extinct, and “extraordinary ministers” have proliferated in their place. We’ve stopped apprenticing our children for the priesthood, and instead deputize laywomen to dispense the Body and Blood like hot dog vendors at a baseball game.

Now, it’s one thing for non-Catholics to distrust priests. That’s been the norm in Protestant countries since the Reformation. But what hope do we have if Catholics themselves mistrust their Fathers?

When I first spoke to my priest about conversion, I remember telling him how refreshing it was to see local boys serving at the altar. After spending eight years in Catholic school and attending hundreds of Masses as an Episcopalian, it was a completely novel experience. How wise their parents are to buck this anti-clerical hysteria – and how brave the priests to defy the gossipers!

That’s yet another example of the power of the TLM to gain converts. Very few are truly won over by the Novus Ordo, with its guitar-strummers and “extraordinary ministers”. No one wants to join a religion that’s embarrassed by its own traditions and suspicious of its own clergy.

Yet we persist in privileging rumor over truth and fashion over orthodoxy. It begs the question: is our internalized Catholicphobia so severe we’re willing to let the Church go extinct?
 

"As long as a new apostolic constitution is not drafted and promulgated, everything in the old one is still Valid." This seems to me the most important statement in Andrea Gagliarducci's column this week, in which he says that Pastor Bonus, the apostolic constitution written by John Paul II to define the functions of the Roman Curia are still valid, and that therefore, all the huffing and puffing of the past four years towards the vaunted reform of the Curia have 'insufficient institutional roots to hold on in the longer term'.

Gagliarducci uses the example of the Secretariat of the Economy specifically to illustrate his hypothesis. But is it mere hypothesis or fact-based reality? No other Vatican commentator has made this observation, to my knowledge. Everyone seems to simply have presumed that if the absolute monarch of the Vatican decrees something formally, as he did with his various ad hoc decrees affecting the Curial structure, then, especially for this pope who claims that everything he does must be irreversible, it is so. To which one must say, at least while he is pope. If the Vatican were the USA, there might be cases filed already to question the validity of Bergoglio's ad hoc decrees on the Curia insofar as they contradict or amend Pastor Bonus - which as an Apostolic Constitution has a higher value as an official document than any of Bergoglio's chirographs.

Moreover, one would think that precisely because of Bergoglio's obsession that everything he does must be irreversible, he and his associates would have done all they could to make their reforms in the Curia solid and invulnerable. But so far, these reforms themselves have been fluid and vulnerable to changing circumstances and an apparently flexible disposition by this pope about the 'reforms' he has undertaken with such unwarranted hype and unmet expectations..

Pope Francis:
The struggle behind the scenes
by Andrea Gagliarducci
MONDAY VATICAN
July 3, 2017

Cardinal George Pell took a leave of absence from his post as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. The announcement of the leave came just one week after the news broke that the Vatican’s General Auditor, Libero Milone, resigned.

Though the two events might be linked and the connection between them considered as part of a resistance to Vatican financial reform, there are more complex issues to deal with.

Cardinal Pell took a leave of absence in order to defend himself from the infamous allegations of sex abuse brought against him in Australia. Explaining his choice, he did not hesitate to describe the campaign against him as “character assassination.”

In fact, there was a long escalation on the part of newspapers which linked his name to the investigation. This escalation culminated with the news of the charges against the Cardinal and of his summons to appear in court on July 18.

The same escalation took place when Pell was called to testify before the Royal Commission in the State of Victoria for allegations that he covered up sex abuse. As his medical conditions did not allow him to fly to Australia, he asked for and obtained permission to be heard via a video conference from Rome.

The hearing took place in February 2016, and it should be noted that the first questionsmostly dealt with Cardinal Pell’s current responsibilities in the Vatican and whether or not he managed money. None of the initial questions had anything to do with an alleged abuse cover up. Furthermore, questions that came afterward had the clear intention of drawing the Cardinal into self-contradiction.

This is a typical modus operandi in an Anglo-Saxon kind of trial, especially in a civil proceeding that often concludes with the payment of compensation to victims. Not by chance the scandal concerning sexual abuse of minors in the Church has almost always led to huge compensations being paid to the survivors.

It is true that one priest-abuser is already one too many. It is also true that in too many cases the clergy sex abuse issue was made more gigantic than what it was in order to get millions of dollars in compensation, as Massimo Introvigne stressed in his book “Pedophilia. A Battle the Church is Winning”.

Cardinal Pell’s leave, in the end, has nothing to do with the Vatican financial reform. But his leave also leaves some questions open concerning how effective this reform is.

With the Prefect on a leave until the conclusion of the trial, the Secretariat for the Economy will operate in terms of what is called “ordinary administration”. It is also possible that the Pope will appoint a new Prefect at the end of everything. Or the Pope could even abolish the Secretariat for the Economy.

The dicastery has statutes, but at the same time it has no place in Pastor Bonus, the Apostolic Constitution that regulates the Curial offices’ functions.

Though no one thinks about this, Pastor Bonus is still in effect, as Pope Francis pointed out via a rescript solicited by the Vatican Secretariat of State. The reform that is being carried out “in the walking” – as Bishop Semeraro, Secretary of the Council of Cardinals, described it – has insufficient institutional roots to hold on in the longer term. As long as a new apostolic constitution is not drafted and promulgated, everything in the old one is still valid.

Moreover, the Prefecture for Economic Affairs, which formerly had the same functions as the Secretariat for the Economy, is still in existence. It has no President, no high-ranking officials and no functions, but – de iure– it has never been abolished. So, if the Secretariat for the Economy were to be shut down, its competences could return to the Prefecture. The same prefecture underwent a reform in 2012 [under Benedict XVI] that gave it the competences of a modern ministry of finance.

In the end, how can Pope Francis’s economic reform be described? It is certainly a reform with solid presuppositions intended to make the Holy See’s balance sheet more transparent and in conformity with international standards. At the same time, it is a reform that at the beginning was imbued with a 'corporate' mentality, as if the Vatican were a company needing to be restructured.

This mentality led to the appointment of the Pontifical Commissions of Reference in regard to the IOR and the Holy See’s central administration, and then to the expensive external consultants including the contract signed with Price Waterhouse Cooper providing for the external auditing of the Holy See’s balance sheet.

The contract conceded total access to the city-state’s balance sheet, and for this reason, following an intervention by the State Secretariat, it was later re-negotiated.

The struggle behind the scenes has to do, ultimately, with control of the Vatican machine. The starting point was a notion of increased collegiality, and the project was to add other secretariats to the Secretariat of State, thereby allowing the possibility of separating the two sections of the Secretariat of State – for Ordinary Affairs and for Relations with States – into two different bodies. We are now at the point that the Secretariat of State is once again taking command in the control room.

The reconquest is being carried out with intelligence, taking advantage of the false steps of those who tried to carry forward the reform without taking into full consideration what the Vatican is – small false steps, sometimes done in good faith, which nevertheless paved the way for a re-centralization, as happened during the latter days of St. John Paul II’s pontificate.

This brings up a further puzzle: the people called upon to carry out the reform were often not Vatican men. They were not part of that hidden Vatican that has proudly served the Holy See. Many of these latter came from outside the Leonine walls, but once they were in, they left behind all of their previous posts, and began a long and silent work of reform whose fruits are still being harvested. This has not happened for long time.

Libero Milone was one of those men who came from the outside, who was hired via a head-hunter agency. An expert in his field, very much internationally esteemed and with huge skills beyond any suspicion, his post fell directly under the Pope’s supervision.

There are no clues as to the reasons behind his resignation. It seems that he was subjected to an internal investigation, but Vatican sources claim that the investigation did not deal with financial wrongdoing. Sources speak mostly about some false steps of his in management that were not forgiven. His resignation did not come out of the blue. It was the climax of a season of discontents.

Certainly, the reform goes on. But they go on only when they have strong institutional roots. For example, the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) is no longer subject to the Financial Intelligence Authority, as it is no longer involved in any kind of financial transactions. The shut-down of the few accounts opened to the APSA were already foreseen in the 2012 MONEYVAL report. [Under Benedict XVI.]

Even the separation between oversight and management was already foreseen by the MONEYVAL report. For this reasons, it was logical that APSA was going to take back those of its financial management competences that the Secretariat for the Economy had overtaken following publication of the motu proprio “Fidelis Dispensator et Prudens”, which established the Secretariat for the Economy, the Council for the Economy and the Office of the General Auditor.

Fixing the little mistakes committed during the reform is being used as a way to return to the centralization of competences, which also entails a centralization of information.

Recently Italian newspapers have been filled with gossip concerning the alleged vices of some monsignors, with no names being mentioned, but with clear references being divulged. More than frightening, the articles seem to turn the clock back to the end of the 90s. At that time, some media – generally Italian – enjoyed a privileged relation with Vatican officials and secured from them bits of juicy gossip that were in fact aimed at destroying careers.

If we consider this point of view, Milone made a serious mistake in strategy by granting an interview to Corriere della Sera,one of the leading Italian newspapers. The article was inside the newspaper, while on the first page there was an op-ed contesting the Pope’s economic reform.

It is sufficient to read the op-eds in Italian newspapers to feel the mood of the entrenched Curia that is fighting to take back power and marginalize so many of the lieutenants who designated themselves as such during the Francis era.

One of these op-eds also claimed that the Holy See should take its cue from Italy, thereby suggesting that the Holy See should return to that earlier period of psychological edginess toward its cumbersome Italian neighbor.

In fact, even the Vatileaks case was born on the Italy-Vatican border, and the second Vatileaks crisis apparently deals with the sovereignty of the Holy See that Italy has never really taken much into consideration.

[That's not really true by a long shot! To begin, there's the otto-per-mille share of Italy's annual tax revenues that goes to the Italian bishops' conference, which is no small thing! It is true that the Italian government, especially through its courts and its financial institutions, appear to have an animus in the long run towards the Vatican in terms of jurisdiction over crimes and especially inter-bank relations, which is the area in which Italy has been able to bully the Vatican.

All those who believe that Benedict XVI was forced out by external pressures keep citing the fact that there was a short period at the start of 2013 when the ATMs at the Vatican did not work and the IOR was reportedly shut out of the international SWIFT network of bank exchange, these being cited as instigated by the Obama administration, among others, to warn Benedict that worse could come if he did not resign!

What utter rot! The ATM shutdown did occur but only for a few days, and it has been explained as an action taken by the state Banca d'Italia as a fiscal disciplinary action against the German bank that held the franchise for the Vatican ATMs. The SWIFT story, on the other hand, seems to be a canard that has become mythified as a factoid, because Italy alone could not have undertaken the action, and more importantly, because it only came out fairly recently. If it had taken place at the time of the ATM shutdown - or any other time for that matter - it would have been the main headline, not the ATMs which were reported as the annoying but trivial matter that it was at the time, and only lately, blown up to make it look like it was one of the many 'pressures' exerted on Benedict XVI.]

Not by chance, observers say that Libero Milone’s resignation indicates that there could be a Vatileaks III. It should be recalled that it was Milone himself who started the second Vatileaks crisis with a claim that his computer had been hacked.

Although Pell’s and Milone’s cases are not linked, and they deal with situations very different from financial reform, Pope Francis’s reform does not escape undamaged from these events. But this only happens because the reform had no institutional shield.

Until now, Pope Francis’s reforms were brought about simply via the statutes of the new dicasteries along with internal regulations, but they never involved a larger framework. This lacuna represents a structural limit that allows one to think that the reforms are temporary, transitional. Those who had influence after St. John Paul II’s pontificate are now able to take back control at the helm.

A distinction between the two cases should, however, be made. Justice will decide whether Cardinal Pell is guilty or not, but at the moment he is mostly a victim sacrificed for his lack of prudence. The allegations against him had already been made public at the beginning of the 2000s, and at least one of those proved to be inconsistent.

Appointing him a Prefect in Rome meant placing him under a spotlight, and exposing him and the Holy See to a difficult situation. Why was not this considered? And why was Cardinal Pell then used as a scapegoat?

[Gagliarducci seems to forget that Cardinal Pell had been Benedict XVI's first choice to succeed cardinal Re as Prefect of Bishops when the latter retired in 2010. But right away, the never-dormant embers of Pellmania in Australia roared into new flames - and since the early part of 2010 was precisely the peak of the media-driven campaign to discredit Benedict XVI over the sex abuse scandals in the Church (when the overt objective was to get him to resign), he went on to name Cardinal Ouellet instead. I believe that at the time Pell himself asked to be withdrawn from consideration precisely because he did not want his own personal tribulations to exacerbate Benedict's situation.

By 2013, however, Pell came into the new pope's favor,who named him to his advisory Council of Cardinals and eventually, Secretary of the Economy - a position having to do with secular affairs really, unlike Prefect of Bishops, for which anyone with the slightest whiff of connection with any sex-tinged matter whatsoever would have been untenable. That is why initially, no wings flapped at all with Pell's ascendancy in the Bergoglio Pontificate.]

To answer this last questions, it must not be forgotten that the Cardinal is considered a conservative, who during the Synod on the Family represented one of the strongest voices against the “agenda of mercy,” and never retreated from the battle. He is not the kind of Cardinal with whom the media can sympathize.

The Vatican is expected to give some explanation of the Milone case, too. This case, however, seems to deal with Milone’s personal responsibility. It is not a case that affects the general system and the way it works. There is a phrase in Italian that can be translated along the lines of the English expression “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

In this discussion about the bath water, there is the risk that the baby can also be thrown away. This baby is the reform project that existed already before Pope Francis. The project was based in the concept of collegiality and was aimed at eliminating all the centers of power. [I will say this for Gagliarducci - like Sandro Magister, and surprisingly, John Allen, (and I thank them all for it) he does not miss a chance to point out that the administrative reforms Bergoglio delights in seeming to claim as his very own and initiated by him were actually started by Benedict XVI, especially the drive for financial transparency!]

Pope Francis backed [Wrong! He has claimed full credit for everything, including the financial reforms], but now he risks being choked by it, since the reform was de facto destroyed by the new men who have worked on it. [No, that's too sweeping a statement, considering that the 'new men' who have worked for it includes Pell, who did his job as best he could, and Parolin, who successfully got back all the functions that the Secretariat of State appears to have lost initially.]
 

Here's a novel suggestion about what might be done with the DUBIA -though it is hardly practical or realistic: Ask each Catholic bishop in the world to write the pope asking him to answer the DUBIA? It would in effect be an episcopal referendum on the pope - an unprecedented idea which in itself many bishops might consider offensive in view of the cum Petro sub Petro principle.

In an ideal world, where bishops did not have to watch their every step lest they offend the sovereign monarch, this might work. But considering that the overwhelming majority of them have so far declined to say anything on the record about the DUBIA, even those of them who might agree about the DUBIA would be unlikely to say so in a letter to the pope, no less! On the other hand, those of them who are eager to stay in the good graces of the First Tenant of Casa Santa Marta might very well jump at the idea of writing him to show their full support for AL and whatever else he tells them!

Time for Catholic bishops around the world
to request that Pope Francis answer the DUBIA
October 13, 2017, might be the right deadline
by Steven O'Reilly on his blog
ROMA LOCUTUS EST
July 2, 2017

Cardinal Muller is now out – no longer the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Taking his place as Prefect will be Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, until now the Secretary of the Congregation. Folks are understandably trying to read the tea leaves on this one.

Ladaria was appointed to the CDF by Benedict XVI. That’s “good.” Ladaria was just named its prefect by Pope Francis. That’s “bad.” My take on the appointment of Ladaria is probably closer to that of Fr. Z, i.e., that we “dodged a bullet here”. Given some of the other names said to have been in the mix, things could have been far, far worse.

Yet, while we may have “dodged one,” I think the truth is: it never really mattered who replaces Cardinal Muller. Pope Francis simply has no use for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It seems clear enough from the Pope’s homilies and comments attacking his opponents, that Pope Francis likely views the CDF as little more than the Congregation for the Doctors of the Law and Rigidity. Why would he bother placing one of his St. Gallen friends there as Prefect, if he is going to ignore it anyway? Better to place one of his St. Gallen buddies where they might accomplish something for his agenda.

Consider, there have been reports that the CDF had raised questions about various parts of the draft of Amoris Laetitia before it was published. According to these accounts, the Pope simply ignored the CDF. Now, certainly, a Pope is not required to listen to advice and counsel, but it is certainly a prudent and wise thing to do to minimize the risk of confusion and ambiguity.

Pope Honorius could have used a CDF in his day to screen his draft letters to Sergius of Constantinople. Unfortunately for Honorius and the Church of his day, he did not. The confusion that Honorius fostered led to his condemnation by the Sixth Ecumenical Council and to some rather choice words about him by one of his successors, Pope Leo II.

To date, this pope has refused to answer the dubia. He has refused the cardinals' attempts to meet privately to discuss them. He has ignored the publicizing of these efforts, although he appears to be taking pot shots at the DUBIA cardinals in his homilies from time to time. Pope

Francis skipped out again on meeting the College of Cardinals at the recent consistory. One might speculate that the Pope did so to avoid an occasion where he might have been confronted for his obstinate refusal to answer the dubia. I’d like to think he would have been confronted had the opportunity presented itself – but I have my doubts (as much as I respect the four dubia cardinals).

Forget the CDF. It is not a player in this current crisis. It is abundantly clear: this Pope’s CDF – no matter who is Prefect – will not address the dubia in any official way.

So, where does this leave us? I don’t know. I don’t read tea leaves. I don’t drink tea. But, from what I see, the way forward for the dubia cardinals is not clear.

Perhaps one way forward, as I suggested here, might be for the four cardinals – plus as many other cardinals as they can enlist into the effort – to address a signed, public declaration to all Catholic bishops around the world.

This declaration would request that each one of them publicly request that Pope Francis definitively answer the dubia in a solemn manner – befitting a successor of St. Peter – which would “confirm the brethren” (cf Luke 22:32).
- The bishops should do this both by letters to the Pope and from their pulpits.
- The request should include a specified time period for the Pope to respond. Three months should be more than enough time.

How about picking a specific date by which this be done? Pick a date with some import and meaning in the life of the Church in our times – one involving a message concerning the “dogma of the Faith,” sin and the reality of Hell. How about October 13, 2017?

Say a prayer for the valiant
Cardinal Meisner, dead at 83
CATHOLIC HERALD
July 5, 2017

Senior German cardinal and former Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner has died at the age of 83.

Cardinal Meisner served as Archbishop of Cologne for 25 years. A spokesman for the archdiocese said he died on Wednesday morning while on vacation in Bad Füssing.

The cardinal was one of four – along with Cardinals Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Raymond Leo Burke – who presented the ‘dubia’ to Pope Francis asking him to clear up controversies surrounding Amoris Laetitia.

Last month, it was revealed the four cardinals had subsequently sought an audience with the Pope after he failed to answer their questions, but again did not receive a response.

In a statement on Wednesday, Pope Francis said he had learnt of Cardinal Meisner’s death with “great sadness”.

“With deep faith and sincere love for the Church, Cardinal Meisner was dedicated to proclaiming the Good News,” the Pope said.

What the brief report does not mention, of course, is that Cardinal Meisner has always been one of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's very good friends in the hierarchy of the German Church, and this unexpected death must be severe blow to him.

Two stories reported about them in April 2005:
From the Washington Post story reporting Benedict's election, whose headline resonates most ironically today...

---

The Church turns to its guardian of the faith
...Speaking to reporters in Vatican City, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the archbishop of Cologne, Germany, said cardinals broke out in applause when they realized Ratzinger had passed the threshold of a two-thirds majority.

"It was done without an electoral battle, and without propaganda," he said, adding that he began crying when the decision was made. "For me, it was a miracle."

---

And from a story reporting the then new Pope's meeting on April 25, 2005,with German pilgrims who had come to Rome for the Conclave:

---

Speaking in his native German, Benedict told the audience that at one point during the conclave, when it became clear he was garnering many votes, a cardinal slipped him a note of paper reminding him what he had preached about Christ calling Peter to follow him even if he didn't want to go.

Benedict, 78, said he had hoped to spend his last years living quietly and peacefully.

"At a certain point, I prayed to God, 'Please don't do this to me,'" he recalled. "Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me."

---

He later said that the cardinal who slipped him the note was his good friend Cardinal Meisner.

Does Bergoglio not realize that God is perhaps sending him a message with this untimely death? "He died without ever getting an answer from the pope!" will forever be a reproach to Bergoglio's hardness of heart (and hard-headedness) - yet how often has he accused Catholics he dislikes of being hard-hearted!

Cardinal Meisner, one of the four Dubia cardinals, has died
by Steve Skojec
ONEPETERFIVE
July 5, 2017

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Germany, one of the four stalwart cardinals who authored and signed their name to the DUBIA, has passed on to his eternal reward. He did not live to see the DUBIAanswered. He did not, in fact, even live to see his request for an audience with Pope Francis to discuss the matter dignified with a response.

Cardinal Meisner was singled out early on for criticism by papal ally Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto — criticism that Vatican journalist Edward Pentin reported last December came at the pope’s specific instruction. But he did not respond. He merely remained resolute in his request for answers.

In a profile of Cardinal Meisner last December for OnePeterFive, Maike Hickson drew our attention to the character of the man as expressed in a foreward the cardinal wrote for a book by fellow German theologian Dr. Markus Büning. In it, Meisner wrote:

---

“I can do everything through Him Who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13), says the Apostle Paul – and many courageous Christians have taken and made this same Apostolic word the orientation of their own lives. To be a Christian means at all times, but especially in our time, diligence and commitment. It is here not about learning goals, but about Graces that are here being offered. The Christian only has to make use of them [the Graces offered].

In my episcopal coat of arms, the motto for my own episcopal service comes from the Second Letter to the Corinthians: “Spes nostra firma est pro vobis” (2 Cor 1:7). That means, in translation: “Our Hope for you is firm.” I think that Hope is the heart of the three Theological Virtues. That is why it stands between Faith and Charity. The symbol of Hope is the anchor which saves the boat from sinking even in a strong storm. To each of us, with the Faith, is given such an anchor which very firmly connects us with the reality of the living God and thus renders us also effective in our charity.

---

Meisner went on to recount the story of his appointment to the episcopacy, the notification of which came by letter from Pope Paul VI when he was living under the oppressive conditions of Communist East Germany.

He wrote of his fear and consternation over the appointment — a call which he described as “traumatic” — and his recourse to the scriptures when he could not reach his spiritual director or confessor by telephone to seek counsel:

---

In my need I took the New Testament into my hand and said: “Holy Ghost, after all, You are the Author of the New Testament. And You are the Spiritual Guide par excellence.” I then closed my eyes and prayed: “Come, Holy Ghost!”

I opened the New Testament and had in my hands the 6th chapter of the Gospel of St. John concerning the miraculous multiplication of the loaves. There I identified with a touching marginal figure – the little boy with [his basket of] the five loaves and the two fishes who was called into the center by Our Lord.

That little boy also gave away all that he had so that he may become a starveling just like all the others. But the little he had to offer he gave there at the most important place in the world – that is to say, into the hands of Our Lord.

And thus, what was a lack turned into abundance. Everybody had become replete. And there were still twelve baskets filled with the left-over bread pieces. And one of these twelve full baskets I then placed into my episcopal coat of arms and heraldry, with the words of Hope: “Our Hope for you is firm.”

Our Lord fills our emptiness. He relieves our need. He satisfies our hunger. He makes us strong. Without a living Faith, we have no access at all to Hope. And this Hope then becomes efficacious in virtue of Charity. Even five thousand hungry men attained to repletion: “Spes nostra firma est pro vobis.” The center of the Divine Virtues is Hope. It does not die in our lives if the prior Faith is alive and the Charity comes forth afterwards.

---

Cardinal Meisner was the Archbishop of Cologne for 25 years. He died in his sleep while on holiday at the age of 83. May God grant him eternal rest, and should he attain heaven, the intercessory power to assist the Church in the time of need to which he showed particular attention and devotion.

Cardinal Meisner,
one of the ‘dubia’ cardinals,
dies at 83
by the Crux Staff
July 5, 2017

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the former Archbishop of Cologne, has died at the age of 83.

Meisner, considered a leader of the conservative wing of the German episcopate, was one of the four cardinals who presented the “dubia” to Pope Francis, seeking clarifications on the document Amoris Laetitia.

The Cologne archdiocese said Meisner died Wednesday while on holiday in Bad Fuessing, near the Austrian border, where he had been living since his retirement.
Born Christmas Day in 1933 in the eastern German city of Breslau, which is today the Polish city of Wroclaw, Meisner’s family fled to the state of Thuringia in 1945 ahead of the advancing Red Army at the end of World War II.

He studied theology in the city of Erfurt, and was ordained in 1962.
After advancing up the Catholic hierarchy, Meisner was made Bishop of Berlin in 1980 and named a cardinal three years later. He served as the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Berlin from 1982-1989. He became the Archbishop of Cologne in 1989 and served in that role until 2014, staying five years past the retirement age of 75 at the request of Pope Benedict XVI. Francis accepted his resignation in 2014.

During his time in office, he was a strong voice for the pro-life movement, and denounced the government for trying to remove crucifixes from the classroom.

He also caused controversy by opposing plans to build a large mosque in Cologne, and once urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to apologize for criticizing the Vatican’s handling of the case of a Holocaust-denying bishop.

In 2005, he welcomed the newly-elected Benedict to Cologne for World Youth Day, his first trip as pope.

He expressed his shock when Benedict announced his retirement in 2013, stating “marriage and being pope are until death.” He later agreed with the decision, remarking upon Benedict’s frailty.

Last year, he and three other cardinals - American Raymond Burke, Italian Carlo Caffarra, and fellow German Walter Brandmüller - sent five “dubia” [yes-or-no questions] asking clarification on Amoris Laetitia, particularly on the matter of divorced-and-remarried persons receiving Communion, to Francis and the then-head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, Cardinal Gerhard Müller.

Subsequently, the four cardinals attempted to gain an audience with the pope to discuss the issue, but were refused.

“He was not afraid of death, he has always proclaimed it,” said Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Meisner’s successor in Cologne, in his first remarks after hearing the news.

“For him, God was the center; nothing else mattered to him,” he told Domradio, Germany’s Catholic radio service.

Woelki said Meisner looked at his entire world - in thought, action, and political and social views - through the lens of Christ.

“For him, death was just as he said it, the transition from one hand of God into the other hand of God,” Woelki said.

Woelki said his predecessor also stood up for truth, and “fought for the protection of life from the beginning to the end, and raised his voice wherever the dignity of the person was challenged.”

The cardinal also acknowledged the prominent role Meisner played in shaping both the German state and the German Church after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of the country in 1989.

Twitter is blocking @Fight4Charlie.
by Marco Tosatti
Translated from
STILUM CURIAE
July 5, 2017

Those who wish to view the account which was started as part of a spontaneous popular campaign to allow baby Charlie Gard to be brought by his parents to the United States for experimental treatment which could help him survive, are getting the notice seen on the screen-cap:

---

CAUTION: This profile may include potentially sensitive congent. You’re seeing this warning because they Tweet potentially sensitive images or language. Do you still want to view it?

---

Obviously, the social network with the blue bird has been rife with protests and reactions [rightful ones from those who do not think any human agency has the right to dictate whether a person should live or die depending on his medical prognosis or for any other reason other than a court verdict for a capital crime].

But from the politically correct positions that Twitter, like Facebook, has taken, that those who run the network believe that the supporters of Charlie and his right to life are advocating a ‘rightist’, non-conformist position [too rightist apparently to be tolerated on their sites, and non-conformist to the dominant mentality that the social networks promote and propagate].

IMHO, this argument is supported by many signals.
- The Pilate-like statement of the English bishops echoed by
- The unfortunate statement of the president of Bergoglio’s Pontifical Academy for Life, Mons. Paglia.
- The silence for several days of the reigning pontiff on this case, which was broken only by a brief statement issued by the Vatican press officer, Greg Burke on Sunday afternoon, July 2, forced, it appears, because the Internet erupted into protests after the pope said not a word about Charlie in his noonday Angelus remarks.

One must underscore in passing that the pope has just issued a new statement about migrants. It is an understatement to say that we are confronted with a phenomenon of a pope who is obsessively loquacious [if the subject is his choosing].

On the topic of indiscriminate immigration, perhaps he should exercise prudence in view of the financial, judicial and sociological implications of this phenomenon he encourages, not to mention the sensibilities of the people who reside in what we might call the ‘theater of invasion’ [because escalating Muslim immigration to to Western countries is really an important part of the current Islamic drive to conquer the world, and not just the West, for Islam].

Moreover, getting back to baby Charlie, we have seen the statements made by many Italian media-savvy priests who are also exponents of the politically correct, ecclesial or otherwise, are in line with the vulgate line #Charliedevemorire (#Charlieshoulddie).

Among the comments we have received, I want to share this:

---

For what it may serve, I wish to report briefly the misadventure of the site ‘Il bene vincera’ (Good will triumph) which I run: Almost immediately after I posted a link to Francesco Agnoli’s article entitled ‘Don Milani* e pedofilo?’, within minutes, my account was blocked. And is still blocked. The media and the social media are absolutely ‘controlled’.

---

I have not posted anything about the latest example of Bergoglio’s spiritual genuflection to persons he considers models and future saints for the church of Bergoglio, when he went out of his way to make an ostentatious visit to the graves of two Italian progressivist priests he obviously wishes to canonize. There were other more ‘immediate’ stories of interest about this pope at the time, but I have been waiting for a good occasion to get to the subject, and here it is - at least partially for now.

Don Lorenzo Milani, who was a political radical and conscientious objector, founded a school in a mountain village near Florence for children who had been failed or abandoned by the traditional school system. He started by working with eight boys for about a year, but eventually, his school attracted hundreds of others because of his informal pedagogy. However, the article referred to cites passages from letters he wrote to his friends which sound most unlikely to be written by a priest. I will cite two sentences from the passages excerpted:

---

“How can I explain that I love my wards more than I love the Church and the Pope? I know that if I am risking my soul, it will certainly be not for having loved too little, but rather for loving too much (including, taking them to bed with me)!”
and
”Who could love boys to their very marrow without ending up in their asses [senza finire di metterglielo in culo] ['in culo' is a particularly vulgar Italian expression, 'culo' referring to the asshole] if not a teacher who, with them, also loves God and fears hell?”

---

I gather from the two sentences that he may take them to bed with him but he does not molest them because he fears hell... Anyway, add Don Milani to Don 'Mercedes' Inzoli and to Mons. Ricca among our beloved pope's unusual predilections.

Almost from the very beginning, in my first comments about AL, I brought up its utter and ignominious dismissal not just of the definitive 3 sentences in John Paul II's 1981 Familiaris consortio which ought to have been the 'last word' on communion for RCDs (reiterated rightfully by Benedict XVI in his great apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis about the Eucharist in 2006), but worse, AL clearly ignores the very fundamentals of Catholic morality rooted in the Truth that Christ embodies and spelled out by the Polish Pope in Veritatis splendor. Therefore I found the encyclical to be the right centerpiece for the banner I had been using to illustrate the problem of truth that lies at the heart of the Four Cardinals' Five DUBIA.

I don't think even his most fervent paladins would argue with a straight face that Bergoglio's relation to the truth is anything but, at best, arbitrary. Which is true of any moral and ethical relativist as are most contemporary Jesuits prominent in public discourse - with the sterling exception of the late Cardinal Avery Dulles and Fr James Schall, to name my two favorite Jesuits, and a few other Jesuits who write actively about the life of the Church today, like Fr. Samir of Lebanon, Ratzinger Prize-winning Fr. Christian Schaller of Regensburg, and Fr. De Souza of Canada. Their relativist confreres, starting with the pope, seem to think it is their God-given mission to impose the twisted casuistry of their worldview on the Church and on the faithful...

Mueller out, but the real attack
is against ‘Veritatis splendor’
[Not just the encyclical, but the very idea of Truth itself]
BY Sandro Magister
Translated from
SETTIMO CIELO
July 5, 2017

On July 2, the day on which Pope Francis dismissed Cardinal Gerhard Mueller as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Collect read at the start of Mass in all the Catholic churches of the Roman rite that Sunday is the following prayer:

---

"Deus, qui, per adoptionem gratiæ, lucis nos esse filios voluisti, præsta, quæsumus, ut errorum non involvamur tenebris, sed in splendore veritatissemper maneamus conspicui. Per Dominum nostrum…".

---

[I am unable to google the prayer in the official English translation, so here is my translation from the Italian. However defective if judged against the Latin, I do not think it betrays the sense of the prayer]:

---

“OH Lord, who has made us children of the light through your Spirit of adoption, grant that we do not fall back into the darkness of error but that we may always be illuminated by the splendor of the truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ….”

---

Fate – or Divine Providence? – thus willed it that Mueller’s dismissal would be accompanied by the liturgical invocation that ‘the splendor of the truth‘ may continue to illuminate the Church.
.
[A word about translating ‘splendore della verita’. Because it says ‘della verita’, literally 'of the truth', then the translation with the definite article preceding the noun 'truth' is precise. However, if we go by the original Latin – which does not use articles, definite or indefinite, so the meaning and specificity of the noun is determined by the context in which it us used in the sentence and the syntax of the rest of the sentence - Veritatis splendor could be translated either as ‘the splendor of the truth’, ‘splendor of truth’, ‘splendor of the truth, ‘the splendor of truth’ . In the official English translation of John Paul II’s encyclical named for its first two words in Latin, those two words are translated as 'the splendor of truth’, which is really the most idiomatic as well as probably the most accurate translation in this context. Especially if one keeps in mind that in Catholic doctrine, Christ himself is Truth.]

And “The splendor of truth”, published in 1993, is precisely the title of John Paul II’s most important doctrinal encyclical:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html

It is an encyclical “about some fundamental questions in the Church’s teaching on morality": precisely the subject that has now been revived as a controversy, with wide and influential sectors of the Church who consider that some capital principles of VS [I shall use these initials henceforth to refer to it] have now become invalid, especially after the publication of Amoris laetitia [a document that is preeminently anti-VS and conspicuously does inot mention the document at all.]

Merely note that four of the five DUBIA presented by the Four Cardinals to the pope last year seeking an unequivocal clarification of AL - by him directly - have to do with whether some cardinal propositions made by Bergoglio in AL meet the standards of VS. The points raised by the DUBIA, of course, remain wide open to any and all interpretations, because the pope has refused to consider the cardinals’ questions directly or even to meet with them to discuss the issues.

What were the genesis and objectives of VS? To answer this question, we have an exceptional witness: Joseph Ratzinger. As Prefect of the CDF, he had contributed substantially to the writing of the encyclical. But even after having given up the Papacy, he continues to consider VS as having ‘immutable actuality’ and a document that ‘musy be studied and assimilated” even today.

In 2014, he wrote a well-reflected chapter for a book to honor John Paul II on the occasion of his canonization, in which Benedict XVI called VS the most important and relevant of the Polish pope’s 14 encyclicals. Here is what he wrote about it: quote]The encyclical on moral problems, Veritatis splendor, required long years of maturation and remains one of immutable actuality.

The Vatican-II Constitution on the Church in the contemporary world – contrary to the prevailing ‘natural law’ orientation in moral theology at the time - said that Catholic moral doctrine revolving around the figure of Jesus and his message must have a Biblical foundation.

This was subsequently attempted with some signs that the recommendation was being taken seriously, but this lasted only for a brief period. Then it was being affirmed all over again that the Bible does not have any morality of its own to proclaim but it cites moral models that are valid from time to time. They reasoned that morality is a question of reason, not of faith.

Thus, on the one hand, even morality understood in the sense of natural law disappeared, but no Christian concept was affirmed in its place. And because they could not see either a metaphysical or Christological basis for morality, they resorted to pragmatic solutions – that is, to a morality founded on the principle of calibrating benefits, in which what is truly good and what is truly bad no longer exist, but only which actions are better or worse from the criterion of efficacy. [Benedict XVI, of course, wrote this, almost two years before AL came out, but his words describe the situational ethics and relativist morality AL flaunts.]

The great task that John Paul II set himself in that encyclical was to retrace anew a metaphysical foundation for morality in anthropology (the knowledge of man), as a Christian concretization of the image of man in Sacred Scripture. To study and assimilate this encyclical remains a great and important duty.

Thanks to Beatrice who led me to this story by the translation on her site. Although the Times of London protects itself online from non-subscribers with a paywall, it was easy enough to google Mr Willan's article and find out that it has been reprinted all over the English-speaking world without a paywall! This I lifted from THE AUSTRALIAN.

If the Times of London now deigns to come out with an article like this that is not at all adulatory or even flattering to the reigning pope, does it mean that Bergoglio's honeymoon with the media is coming to an end? One swallow does not a summer make. Let's see the New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais, Frankfuerter Allgemeine Zeitung and Corriere della Sera come out with something similar - then we might think that! Der Spiegel - which with AP and the New York Times, partnered and pooled their considerable resources in 2010 to try and force Benedict XVI to resign by hook or by crook - has already been running a few articles that are corrosively critical of Bergoglio. I don't want to sound smug but truth will out, and perhaps more rational heads in the mainstream media, are starting to shake off their self-imposed blinders about Bergoglio.

However, my first reaction to the fact that the Times of London ran such a story at all was that their adulation for Bergoglio is really secondary to their hatred of the Catholic Church - 'I love this pope but I hate the Church' has been their obvious mantra. And their Bergogliophilia is in fact a consequence of their perception that this singularly anti-Catholic pope (give them credit for perceiving that soon enough) was going to accomplish for them what the secular world has been trying to do for three centuries now against the Church, since the mislabelled Age of Enlightenment! And boy, does the Capozzi story have all the necessary ingredients - sex, drugs and pope-on-a-rope - to milk for headlines...

Just one caveat/cavil: The story clearly says the orgy took place in someone's apartment, not a cardinal's apartment, but that didn't stop the Times from saying otherwise in its headline... More titillating to the unwitting reader...

Police raid gay orgy
at cardinal’s [sic] Vatican apartment
by PHILIP WILLAN
The Times of London
July 5, 2017

Vatican police broke up a homosexual orgy last month in an apartment belonging to the Con­gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the department charged with, among other things, tackling clerical sexual abuse.

The occupant of the apartment is alleged to be the secretary of cardinal Francesco Coccopa­l­merio, head of the Pontifical Council for Legislative texts and a key adviser to the Pope.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is said to have recommended his aide for promotion to bishop, but those plans are likely to be disrupted by news of the orgy and by a period spent recovering from a drug overdose in a Rome hospital and subsequently, in an Italian monastery.

The allegations about the orgy were published by the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.

The incident is symptomatic of a difficult period for the Pope. Four years into his papacy his reforms should be at full throttle; instead, the Catholic Church appears racked by conflict and scandal. [Now, this reported orgy is a genuine scandal, compared to whatever you might think was the worst thing ever alleged in the mishmash of rumor and speculation fed by the so-called Vatileaks-I.]

Critics blame the Pope’s choice of personnel: Cardinal George Pell, appointed to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances, has taken a leave of absence to defend himself against sex abuse charges in Australia, and cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has not had his tenure renewed.

Both men are seen as doctrinal conservatives who could have been an obstacle to the Pope’s ­efforts to introduce a more merciful approach on questions of marriage, divorce and communion. [The writer seems to take it for granted that 'the more merciful approach' is necessarily the right one! And for a fleeting instant, I thought that by ‘choice of people’, the writer meant the sycophants who surround Bergoglio! No, it turns out it’s the ‘doctrinal conservatives’ who must be blamed for the Bergoglio-generated chaos in the Church!]

Both had signed a letter, together with 11 other cardinals, complaining that progressive forces were attempting to manipulate the outcome of a controversial synod on the family.

The manner of their departure risks inflaming a minority of traditionalists deeply unhappy with the Pope’s reforms. Cardinal Mueller’s successor, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer [who has been criticized by some traditionalist bloggers as heterodox] has been accused of covering up the sexual crimes committed by an Italian priest. [The reporter deliberately misrepresents the story: It is claimed that as part of his job at the CDF, Ladaria years ago had recommended the defrocking of a priest investigated by the CDF, and he is now accused of not having reported the priest’s crimes to the Italian authorities. The story appears muddled at this point. You would think the liberals would welcome a priest being punished for his crimes – but now it is Ladaria who is made to appear the criminal!]

Conservatives have also been uncomfortable with the Pope’s reluctance to intervene in the Charlie Gard case, seeing him as aligned with English courts and bishops wanting to spare a sick child from suffering, [And that's a rationale for trying to play God with the boy's life?] rather than determined to defend life at all costs.

The terminally ill 10-month-old boy has a form of mitochondrial disease — a genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage — and has been at the centre of a legal battle between his parents, who wanted him treated in the US, and specialists at the London hospital who said the treatment was experimental and would not help.

“Resistance to the Pope is growing,” said a Vatican source. “We have seen five troubling ­stories emerge in a matter of a few days. They have created turbulence. There’s not going to be a schism, but the Pope has lost credibility in the eyes of many.”

The source said many of Francis’s appointments were controversial; from the prelate chosen to liaise with the Vatican Bank who was found to have been involved in sex scandals, to Francesca Chaouqui, a laywoman chosen for a fin­ancial reform commission who leaked Vatican files to the press.

[Let us be more precise here: The prelate, Mons. Ricca, whom this pope chose to be the ‘spiritual’ director of the IOR, has been involved in sexual scandals that made the police files in Asuncion, Paraguay, his last diplomatic posting. And Chaoqui, named by the reform commission on the recommendation of the Spanish priest Bergoglio appointed as its secretary, leaked confidential Vatican dossiers to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who then went on to write his second ‘Vatileaks’ book.

Chaoqui and the monsignor colluded in the leak. They were tried along with Nuzzi and another journalist who also made use of those dossiers to write an alleged expose of Vatican 'financial shenanigans, as the media love to describe it. The monsignor was sentenced to 18 months in the Vatican jail, Chaoqui had a suspended sentence only because she became pregnant at the time of the trial, and the two journalists got off because, as Italian citizens, the Vatican court has no jurisdiction over them.]

“The Pope has been appointing people who are good parish priests to run dioceses in Italy, but it takes something else to be a bishop and they don’t have the stature for it,” the source said. “Paradoxically, these setbacks are pushing the Pope to accelerate his reforms, while resistance increases. Many Catholics pretend he’s not there and (will) just wait until he’s gone.” [No, not pretend he's not there - because his presence is massively ominous as it is - but simply not to consider him pope because, given what he has been doing to the Church and her doctrine and discipline, he is not at all what a pope should be!]

Prominent journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi [the other Vatileaks-2 journalist] is unconvinced by the Pope’s reform record. “There’s much more shade than light,” he said. “The propaganda about Francis bothers me. The world has been told about a revolution before it happened. He became an idol immediately.”

[Was Mr. Willan not aware that Fittipaldi wrote a book after the 2015 book he called (my translation of the Italian title) "Avarice: Documents that disclose the wealth, scandals and secrets of the church of Francis", he recently came out with a parallel book entitled "Lust: Sins, scandals and betrayals in a Church made of men"? He could have asked him if his book has any information at all on Mons. Luigi Capozzo, Cardinal Coccopalmerio's orgiast protege.]

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke declined to comment. [Poor guy! What can he say that won't make him a liar? Everyday before he starts work, he must be praying desperately to all his patron saints to watch over him so that he may not perjure himself!]

Joaquin Navarro-Valls with Benedict XVI in Les Combes in July 2006, before he resigned as Vatican Press Director.

Following the unexpected passing away of Cardinal Meisner, another figure, this time a layman, very closely associated with the life of the Church in our time, has gone. Joanquin Navarro Valls served both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, for whom he continued to serve as Vatican press director till July 2006. Let us say a prayer for him. On his blog today, Aldo Maria Valli has a remarkable and endearing memoir of a man who was a consummate professional and who also became his friend.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls,80, RIP
By Catholic News Service
7.5.2017 4:05 PM ET

VATICAN CITY, July 5, 2017 (CNS) -- Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who spent 22 years as director of the Vatican press office, died today at age 80.

No details were available immediately, but his death was announced in a tweet by the current director of the Vatican press office, Greg Burke.

In a statement to Catholic News Service, Burke said he did not always agree with Navarro-Valls, but his predecessor "always behaved like a Christian gentleman -- and those can be hard to find these days."

"Joaquin Navarro embodied what Ernest Hemingway defined as courage: grace under pressure. I got to know Navarro when I was working for Time, and the magazine named John Paul II Man of the Year. I expected to find a man of faith, but I found a man of faith who was also a first-class professional."

Burke said he remembered watching Navarro-Valls closely during the 1994 U.N. Population Conference in Cairo, which Burke described as "one of the best examples of what Pope Francis calls ideological colonization. It was fascinating to see someone who was defending the faith, but he wasn't on the defensive. He was leading the fight."

Navarro-Valls, a medical doctor by training, was the first lay journalist to hold the position when he was appointed by St. John Paul II in 1984. The Spaniard was also a member of the influential organization Opus Dei.

An author of books on the family and fluent in several languages, Navarro-Valls often provided colorful, picturesque details concerning Pope John Paul's activities and daily life. He also acted many times as an adviser to the pope on the media impact of papal decisions.

He traveled with St. John Paul on almost all his apostolic journeys and became a well-recognized figure, especially after the pope fell ill in 2004. He regularly held press conferences to relay news to the world of the pope's deteriorating condition.

In 1992, Navarro-Valls overhauled the press office with a $2 million technological face-lift along with much-needed, modernized facilities. He also revolutionized the distribution of material by making archives, documents and statistics concerning the pope's activity available online.

Navarro-Valls was born in Cartagena, Spain, Nov. 16, 1936.

Here is John Allen's tribute:

Joaquin Navarro-Valls:
'Take him for all in all,
I will not look upon his like again'
John L. Allen Jr.
Editor
CRUX
July 5, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke on the phone to Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who served as the Vatican spokesman from 1984 to 2006, though that hardly does justice to the role he played under Pope John Paul II. In reality, Navarro was a member of John Paul’s inner circle and something akin to a Chief of Staff, much more than a mere press mouthpiece.

I had heard Navarro was seriously ill with a type of cancer, and since I was in Rome I wanted to have the chance to say goodbye. His voice was barely recognizable, scratchy and breathless, but he still managed to tell me I do “stupendous” work and to ask me to say hello to my wife for him.

I hung up in tears, conscious I had just spoken to a dying man.

On July 5, the end came. Navarro-Valls is dead at the age of 80, with the news breaking through a tweet by his successor as Director of the Holy See Press Office, American Greg Burke, who added a phrase that could well be the whole of Navarro’s epitaph: “Grace under pressure.”

Born in Cartagena, Spain, in 1936, the young Navarro attended a German school in his hometown, then studied medicine at the Universities of Granada and Barcelona, eventually becoming a professional psychiatrist and teaching medicine. (Later, Navarro would be known in the Vatican press corps for occasionally offering unsolicited medical advice to journalists, chiding them for putting on weight, not getting enough exercise, and so on.)

Navarro also studied journalism, earning a degree from the University of Navarra in 1968 and another in 1980. He would eventually make journalism his profession, becoming a foreign correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC. While covering Italy and the Vatican, he was elected a member of the Board of Directors and later President of the Foreign Press Association in Rome for two terms.

Also as a young man, Navarro joined the Catholic organization Opus Dei, eventually becoming a “numerary,” meaning a celibate member who lives in an Opus Dei center. Over the years the organization served as a lightning rod for controversy, in part for its reputation for conservative politics, in part over charges of cult-like control over members’ lives.

Navarro often bristled at questions about his Opus Dei ties, insisting it was a private matter that had nothing to do with his job.

“I was a foreign correspondent in Egypt, in Israel, and in Greece,” Navarro said in an interview for a 2005 book. “Inevitably I had to write on Islam, on Judaism and on Orthodoxy. Nobody, neither public officials nor religious leaders, was the least concerned, or even curious, about my personal beliefs. They were concerned only with the accuracy and fairness of my reporting.

“Very much the same happened when I worked as a medical doctor in a hospital for fourteen years,” he said. “They were interested in good medical attention, and that was what I tried to give them.”

Navarro was a highly personal choice by John Paul, who called him to a lunch to offer him the job. Looking back, Navarro once said he believed the primary reason John Paul turned to him was because he had been twice elected president of the Foreign Press Association in Rome, a sign of respect by his colleagues, though he acknowledged that being in Opus Dei was perhaps a “guarantee” for the pope that he had a solid formation in Catholic teaching.

As spokesman, Navarro sought to shape the narrative of John Paul’s papacy. He once made a trip to the American White House during the Reagan years to spend time with their communications team, and sought to emulate the best of advanced Western “spin.”

Marco Politi, a veteran Vatican writer for La Repubblica and other Italian outlets, described Navarro as “orientational,” in the sense that he tried to steer journalists in a particular direction in terms of how the story of John Paul II was reported, as opposed to other spokespersons content simply to repeat what the pope said or did and leave it at that.

Beyond simply dealing with the press on John Paul’s behalf, Navarro also was a key policy adviser and emissary of the pontiff, for instance leading the Holy See’s delegation at an International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, where there was a strong push to enshrine access to abortion as a human right under international law.

Navarro helped put together an improbable coalition, quickly dubbed the “Holy Alliance,” of Catholic and Muslim nations to beat back that attempt.

Navarro was smart, articulate, hard-working, multi-lingual, and utterly devoted to the popes he served (he would stick around for a while under Benedict XVI before giving way to Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi.)

None of that is to say Navarro was without his flaws.

For one thing, it was often not entirely clear, when he talked about John Paul, whether he was telling us what actually happened or what he felt should have happened. It predates my time, but oral tradition in the Vatican press corps has it that once Navarro gave a full in-air briefing about a meeting John Paul had with Guatemalan human right activist Rigoberta Menchú, down to the colorful native costume she wore.

The only problem was that the meeting was cancelled at the last minute because Menchú was too ill, so Navarro was forced to retract everything. He’d obviously had his talking points ready to go, and didn’t bother checking whether the encounter had actually happened.

During John Paul’s final illness in 2005, the pope underwent a tracheotomy on Feb. 24 to relieve respiratory problems. The next morning Navarro told the press that John Paul had eaten ten cookies for breakfast - which, beyond just being an awful lot of cookies, strained credibility because it wasn’t clear how a patient with a tracheal tube could even do it.

Still, on the important stuff we all took Navarro seriously, because we knew John Paul had his back.

Navarro was also the bane of many reporters’ existence, because he nakedly and openly played favorites. There were some journalists, either because of the size of their audience or because he trusted them, with whom he would share insider information, and others whose phone calls and emails he would never return.

I got a spot on his “A” list fairly early, so I never had any complaints, but I understood why many of my colleagues did. Remarkably often, I’d end up calling him with a question for one of them, simply because I could get through and they couldn’t.

However, no one’s perfect, and on the whole, the Navarro Valls I knew was a giant of a man. He also took a deep personal interest in the people around him - in fact, the very last question he ever asked me in that brief talk we had a couple weeks ago was about my health.
[Allen goes on to quote what Greg Burke said about Navarro-Valls, quoted in the CNS story.]

When I spoke to Navarro for the last time, I tried to tell him what he had meant to me, and how much he had helped me when I was just starting out. I’m not sure he took it all in, because by that stage in the conversation he was obviously fatigued and drifting in and out.

If he didn’t quite get it, let me say it now: I’m probably not here, writing this appreciation or doing anything else in journalism, had it not been for Joaquin Navarro-Valls. To quote Shakespeare, “Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”

July 6, 2017 headlines
Found a way to 'reproduce' the aggregators' headlines...

Canon212.com

---

Deacon Kandra on Bishop Barron: From ‘meh’ to ‘yeah’!?
155 Bishops hold "Mass of Sending" to close out Orlando FrancisConvocation
Bishops’ repulsive Orlando FrancisConvocation circulated flyers of potential ‘disruptors’ to be excluded
Atlanta FrancisBishop Wilton on his auxiliary's move to Raleigh: They'll talk to me over there again!
Trump to Poles: The Polish experience reminds us - the defense of the West ultimately rests not only
on means but also on the will of its people to prevail
Retired Philadelphia Auxiliary and WWII vet Bp. DeSimone: I made my final decision to be a priest
when PIus XII said he'd pray for me.
UK to FrancisVatican: You can have Charlie Gard only if you promise to remove his life support!
Beleaguered FrancisSpox Greg Burke: Bambino Gesu Hospital Offers An Exceptional Level of Care, OK?!
Derailed FrancisCardinal Turkson at Vatican UN joint conference. We're not going off course, see?
Redemption is not only for the human person, but also for the Earth,
for creation, for the world and everything that affects human life!"
Corsi/Neumayr on FrancisVatican: If you think Cd. Coccopalmerio is bad, Mgr. Ricca still runs the Bank!
Creepy Cologne Cd. Woelki: Cd. Meisner was found with his breviary, eyes open, sitting up like a tree with deep roots
Dear Professor George: Is Abp. Ladaria a treasure, or was Card. Muller a treasure, or are they both treasures?

---

PewSitter

---

Trump: 'If We Do Not Have Strong Families and Strong Values...We Will Not Survive'
The French Jesuits challenge Humanae Vitae
The Liberal Jesuit Captivity of the Papacy
Bishop McGrath's lacking letter on sacramental service
Pope's Favorite Newspaper Opens the Hunt Against New CDF
Pope Francis: SSPX Must Accept Vatican Council II and the New Mass
Scholas Occurrentes: Pope's message for a 'culture of encounter' without Christ
Cardinal Cupich and Thomas Rosica Host Pro-Gay Journalist at Chicago Theology on Tap
Tribute to Writer Tito Casini, the Man Who Exposed Liturgical Anarchist Arch Bugnini's 'Strange Connections'
Mgr Luc Ravel, archbishop of Strasbourg, denounces 'great replacement' as Muslims reproduce, Europeans abort themselves out of existence
Abp. Chaput on Fr. Martin’s book:
Jesus didn’t come to affirm us in our sins
And destructive behaviors …. but to redeem us

---

Canonist Ed Peters calls down another US bishop - a doctorate in canon law from the Lateran University, no less - for what seems to be a willful disregard for what canon law actually says, in favor of blind subservience to whatever this pope says, in this case, his ideas on sacramental participation... Mons. Patrick McGrath of San Jose joins Mons. McElroy of San Diego, another already notorious California bishop utterly servile to the word and person of Jorge Bergoglio...

Bp. McGrath’s letter
on sacramental service
by Edward Peters, JD, JCD, Ref. Ap. Sig.
IN THE LIGHT OF THE LAW

In 1977, during the darkest period of canonical confusion that ran from the end of the Second Vatican Council until the promulgation of the 1983 Code, then-Fr Patrick McGrath earned a doctoral degree in canon law from the Lateran University in Rome.

Now-Bp Patrick McGrath of San Jose is surely aware, then, that multiple canonical requirements for sacramental participation exist and he would, I imagine, be distressed to learn that his recent letter, implying that “good faith” is the only criterion for admission to the sacraments, could be pastorally misleading.

A key — not the only, but a key — norm controlling the administration of sacraments to the faithful is Canon 843 § 1 which states:

---

“Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.”

---

Phrased negatively (because, given the fundamental right of the faithful to receive the sacraments established elsewhere in the Code, the burden is on ministers to demonstrate why they should refuse someone requesting a sacrament), this canon sets forth three factors that can require a minister to withhold sacramental services from a member of the faithful, namely, a petitioner’s: (1) bad timing; (2) inadequate disposition; and/or (3) canonical ineligibility.

Bp. McGrath’s letter, expressing only one criterion (“good faith”), is already confusing, therefore, for those who do not know that at least three factors, and not just one, impact sacramental administration.

Now, about those three requirements.
1. That requests for sacraments be made at “appropriate times” is not an issue here and so I pass over it.
2. That “proper disposition” for sacraments must be shown by a member of the faithful is contested by some and unappreciated by many in the Church these days. Thus, failing even to mention this requirement does not advance the cause of pastoral clarity. [In the church of Bergoglio, 'proper disposition' seems to be entirely at the 'discernment' of the person concerned, i.e., if he feels 'at peace with himself' about receiving a sacrament, as one of the 'discerning' AL advocates describes it.]

A closer look at the pastoral tradition on “proper disposition” for sacraments (or “worthiness” for them, per most older commentators) suggests that two questions are involved here, specifically, what we might call ‘external disposition’ (e.g., completion of catechesis, public comportment with the Faith, even dress and decorum) and ‘internal disposition’ (e.g., the state of one’s soul, level of belief, advertence to the act).

While, as will be seen shortly, some aspects of the third requirement (canonical eligibility, below) can impact one’s disposition for sacramental service, in brief, the failure to show a suitable external disposition (including, therefore, public comportment with the Faith) leaves a minister little choice but to withhold sacramental service; in contrast, one’s internal disposition can, in most cases of public administration, be presumed.

None of these important nuances would be apparent, of course, if one is told that “good faith” alone (even if that phrase is understood as something akin to proper internal disposition) suffices for sacramental administration.

3. Finally, that one must be canonically eligible for a sacramental service would, in earlier days perhaps, be so obvious as to not need restating. But these are not those days and, again, failing to mention this requirement does not advance the cause of pastoral clarity.

But that we might be clear, for example,
- Catholics who do not repent of extra-marital sexual acts (whether heterosexual or homosexual) cannot be absolved in Confession; - Catholics who undergo a “sex-change” operation cannot receive a new Baptism;
- two Catholics of the same-sex cannot marry each other (nor can a Catholic cleric officiate at such a ceremony); and
- Catholics who “obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin” as that phrase is understood by the tradition and those who take the time to study it, must not be given holy Communion or granted Christian funeral rites.

Bp. Paprocki’s decree, unlike Bp. McGrath’s letter, underscores the exclusion of certain persons (more precisely, of persons who have taken certain public actions) from sacramental services based on the express or implied canonical requirements established by the Legislator.

And Paprocki (a canonist, too, Gregorian Univ. 1989) goes on to indicate the canonically recognized conditions under which some or all sacramental services might be restored to such persons — information omitted from McGrath’s letter as being, one supposes, unnecessary if “good faith” is really all that is needed for sacramental service.

I do not know whether McGrath’s letter was really a ‘response’ to Paprocki’s decree, but I do know that the latter’s document is a much more complete and accurate presentation of Church discipline on sacramental administration than is the former’s.

Much.

I wish every story could be illustrated with an embeddable video!

Tim Capps had this 'breaking news' yesterday. It says everything that it is news when this anti-Catholic pope actually makes a Catholic video, that is, a video with Catholic content (especially since some of the earlier videos do not even mention Christ)... However, the Bear's 'happy surprise' about this July papal video - who really watches these things? - made him overlook one significant point, which I will remark upon...

BREAKING:
Pope releases Catholic news video
by Tim Capps
ST. CORBINIAN'S BEAR
July 5, 2017

Granted, it calls upon normal, real, "happy Catholics" to invite "un-Christian sad Catholics" back to the Church so they can be happy, but hey, it's better than we've see so far. If Protestants can have their "Prosperity Gospel," Bear will give Francis a "Happiness Gospel." It's a start, if a superficial one.

[Bergoglio forgets that charity begins at home. How about inviting himself - being pathetically anti-Catholic and habitually scowling despite all that jovial public persona - to return to the Church?

But for the record, sometimes people are sad, and sometimes people are even depressed. These are not abnormal or "un-Christian." The Bible is full of people who were not always overflowing with joy, and more than one prophet begged God to put him out of his misery. Being Catholic is not an exemption from normal human emotional states, or even abnormal ones, and there are many people who do not need to hear such nonsense.

But compared to this, it's like he's morphed into Pope St. Pius X overnight. [Except, of course, he is still nothing more than pathetic Jorge hubristically seeking to replace the one true Church of Christ with his own church as the better, far more merciful, more flexible (i.e., unrigid) church?]

The Bear did a commendable service on July 4 when he decided to reprint 'a post from over a year ago that has re-surfaced in the readership stats...especially since it meshes well with the previous post on Realism which has proved very popular'. A post I missed but which I will append after this.

The mad virtues of Pope Francis
by Tim Capps
ST. CORBINIAN'S BEAR
July 4, 2017

Pope Francis: Finally, a Smiling Face to the Horror
For decades we have had to sit and watch helplessly as the Church was consumed by preventable scandal and ceaseless innovation. The enemy was hard to get a fix on. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, and his name was Legion. But it was clear that somehow the schwerpunkt of the Church Militant had without question drifted far from the original plan.

In Pope Francis, we have seen, for the first time, the incarnation of the Church's errors and abuses. God has driven into plain view the secret corruption, the pride posing as humility, the indifferentism posing as tolerance, the disregard for the Deposit of the Faith, and the "rebranding" of Catholicism and the papacy that Fr. Rosica is so proud of.

In Pope Francis we finally have someone to speak out against, and thereby indict the whole sorry lot of meddlers, swindlers, and sappers: in short, all those who loathe the Church they are supposed to lead.

In other words, we are reacting not only to what Pope Francis personally says and does, but to Pope Francis the Avatar of a different spirit -- the "spirit" of Vatican II, the spirit of the "media council," and, fundamentally, the spirit of the Prince of this world.

One might say we are seeing the beginning of the end of a plot. To simplify, it began with throwing open to the world the windows of the Church. It is ending by tearing down the walls of the Church.

Boundary Issues
But the Church needs walls. It needs to be separate from the world. Distinct from other religions. The Church should be a fortress from which Catholics sally forth into the world, but not as part of the world, not as worldlings fighting trendy secular battles.

Every Catholic should be able to say with confidence, "here is the Church," and "there begins the world." There are Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, but here is Catholicism. Here is the truth, and there is something else, and we do no favors by pretending otherwise.

That sounds so harsh! Intolerant! Real! We would rather live in our fantasy world where if we're just nice enough, everyone will love us. (To be fair, this does seem to be working out for Pope Francis.) [So far, but how much longer?]

It would be easy to twist the the Bear's meaning. He is not advocating hiding behind the walls of the Church while the world goes to Hell. We should engage the world, but with evangelism, not indifferentism; charity, not socialism; truth, not accommodation of error.

We should all be Catholic as if it mattered. Especially the Pope. [But he ain't - and there's the problem!]

Of course, the church of Pope Francis [With apologies to Capps, who uses the term 'Franciscan Church' all throughout, and 'Church' with a capital C, but I choose to replace it with 'the church of Pope Francis', or better still, 'the church of Bergoglio' as I have been doing] has a horror of walls or division of any kind.

The supernatural must be tolerated for the sake of the masses, but for the initiates, purple, red and white, "There'll Be Pie In the Sky When You Die" remains the favorite hymn. A sarcastic number right out of the Little Red Songbook. The religion of his church, much like Freemasonry, is The Brotherhood of Man. It is remarkable, but true: you could strip it of every specifically Christian element, and the world would not be able to tell any difference.

This is no accident. Religious differences must be downplayed in pursuit of the 8th Sacrament of the church of Bergoglio: the Holy Photo-Op. And, of course, the aforementioned Brotherhood of Man.

The funny thing is, no one in this church would deny that they are tearing down walls and erasing boundaries. [On the contrary, they take pride in it!] They might deny celebrating error, but only because they don't recognize error. The Pope coulf travel to Sweden to commemorate "the blessings" of Martin Luther's reformation because we're all Lutherans now. In other words, what the Bear laments, the church of Bergoglio is most proud of. "Rebranding" indeed. A crass and ignorant word to cover a multitude of sins. [But Bergoglio is not simply 're-branding' - he means to demolish the Church as it had been from the time Jesus instituted it up to the evening of March 13, 2013, and replace it with his new and oh-so-improved early third millennium model!]]

The Mad Virtues of Pope Francis
We would do well to remember what Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy. It is almost as if he foresaw Pope Francis. In his day, it was Christianity in general that had been shattered. In ours it is particularly the Catholic Church, but the same warnings apply. No mad virtue is as mad as a Catholic virtue, as we have seen in history.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage.

But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

Pope Francis is, as far as the Bear can see, more virtuous than the Bear. He is also more mad, if the Bear knows anything about madmen. No virtue may remain merely good with Francis. It must become a mania, a delusion, another shiny object to be incorporated into the narcissistic personality of Francis the Humble, Francis the Tolerant, Francis the Compassionate. Of course, what the Bear calls "madness" becomes "rebranding," or "transcending his own religion."

A Spontaneous Resistance
We who have retained a Catholic identity have universally resisted Jorge Bergoglio. We didn't ask for this. We didn't organize it. It just happened. We found ourselves being appalled by the same things, connecting the same dots, reaching the same conclusions. We speak with one voice from the same vision, without collaboration. The very people who would normally be the Pope's most fervent supporters have become his harshest critics.

Bergoglianism and Catholicism cannot both be right. (The Bear thinks the collection of pathologies motivating Pope Francis deserves the honor of its own name.) The Bear is not going to repeat the indictment here. It is contained in the archives of this ephemeris, and of many others. It is literally becoming difficult to keep up with Francis the Talking Pope. Perhaps the plan is to beat us through attrition, the way he buried the message of Amoris Laetitia in 247 pages that defy all but the most clever and mind-numbing analysis.

If Pope Francis is indeed all we fear he is, there's not much we can do. By and large, people travel with the herd, and try to think the thoughts the world tells them are right. That worked great when a confident Church put the stamp of the Christ on the culture. It was not so long ago that the joke ran: "Hollywood -- a place where Jews make movies selling Catholic theology to Protestants." Not anymore.

The Most Popular Man in the World
Why not just back a winner? The latest poll [this was in mid-2016) shows Pope Francis with a popularity rating of 54%, 85% among Catholics, and -- tellingly -- over 50% among agnostics and atheists.

"Francis is a leader who transcends his own religion," said Jean Marc Leger, president of WIN/Gallup International. He's the most popular public figure in the world, and has replaced the Dalai Lama as Generic Spiritual Leader. Only Turkey, Tunisia and Algeria don't like him.

Perhaps, any day now, Pope Francis is going to cash in all that full-spectrum popularity to tell the world about Jesus. More likely not. After all, what does "transcend his own religion" mean? What does "rebranding Catholicism and the papacy" mean? Are these words not chilling to any normal Catholic? Do not the pages of old prophecies begin to rustle out of the dust? Whether you want to go there or not, it makes no difference. Prophecies warn about dangers to come. We didn't listen, and now Nebuchadnezzar is in the sanctuary.

From comments out of Catholic officialdom, we know we are heard at the highest levels. Our message is getting through. We speak out, and others take comfort. We try to preserve the truth and condemn error not because we are holy, but because nobody else will do it. Looking over the last three years, we have done a surprisingly good job, in the Bear's opinion. That's how we operate. Independent francs-tireurs [literally, 'free shooters', a good French term for guerrilla fighters]. Partisans. The resistance.

This is not to glamorize anyone. Partisans don't always have pure motives, and sometimes go beyond what is reasonably necessary. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're amateurs. Perhaps our sins will be applied to those who have made the resistance necessary in the first place. We take real risks. One blogger got himself sued by a priest -- papal PR flack Fr. Rosica. But more seriously, we also take spiritual risks.

Ephemerists need your prayers. For prudence, temperance, fortitude, and charity.

Francs-Tireurs
Pope Francis uses the entire spectrum of media to spread his errors. If there's a single problem with the man, it's that he lacks a supernatural dimension. Perhaps he suffers from a cultural resentment and envy coming from his background. He cannot think in proper categories.

For example, he recently made the bizarre comment that he sees the evangelization of Europe as "colonialism," Worse, from the same interview, he cannot differentiate between Jesus sending forth his disciples to the nations and the blood conquests of ISIS. Mad virtues indeed.

Can madness from a pope really go unanswered? There is hardly a peep from the bishops. [Other than the DUBIA, which only a relative handful in the entire 5,000+ hierarchy of the Catholic Church have dared to support] Surely all of them are not deaf or in agreement. It would take a lot of courage for a bishop to criticize a sitting pope. The Bear may not be qualified, but at least he's willing to put on his hat, take up his shovel, and start trying to put out some of the brush fires Pope Francis sets.

There is a place for dry and sober analysis. But the internet has its own idiom. The legitimate weapons we place at the service of the Church include agitprop, and sometimes a dash of snark and a dollop of satire, so people will enjoy reading what the Bear writes. (Besides, Bears have a hard time being serious for longer than ten minutes.)

Is it sinful to criticize the Pope? That is not a question the Bear is going to answer for anyone else. It is an important one to him, because, after all, he still has to go to confession like everyone else. We should not perform an evil act so that we may obtain a good result. But the laity has a legitimate say in the Church. The Bear is performing a lawful act by informing, educating, and commenting about this man who has effortlessly twisted the Church according to his own personal hobbyhorses.

In a nutshell, together, we are staying with the "old brand" of Catholicism, before Pope Francis "rebranded" Catholicism and the papacy, and "transcended his own religion." So what if most people say they like Pope Francis? Since when was the truth found in poll numbers?

The Bear has noticed that most of the people who like Pope Francis seem to be unfamiliar with his actions, unable to articulate what he has done to earn their approval, or progressive Church dissidents.

If the Pope and his public business are portrayed in an unflattering light, that is an unavoidable consequence, even as it is not the real objective. Few are criticizing the Pope for the sake of criticizing the Pope. Even the Bear, who may take an unholy glee in what he does isn't playing.

The Sin of Silence
But there is also the sin of "adulation." Nobody ever talks about it, so here it is, right from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

---

Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another's vices or grave sins. Neither the desire to be of service nor friendship justifies duplicitous speech. Adulation is a venial sin when it only seeks to be agreeable, to avoid evil, to meet a need, or to obtain legitimate advantages. (CCC 2480)

---

[[Betcha all the sycophants elbowing each other out to have a privileged seat at the papal dining table in Casa Santa Marta never heard of this at all!]

Funny, the Bear has never heard Fr. Rosica say, "Patheos bloggers are a bunch of sycophantic losers with a pathological need for approval and an aversion to sound doctrine. We must pray for these disturbed, broken and angry people."

Of course, Fr. Rosica's job might be to commit the sin of adulation continuously, but the Bear does not know the man's heart, or how much culpability might be reduced by mental issues, or secret struggles. One must wonder about someone who brags about "rebranding" Catholicism, though.

Rugiemus Quasi Ursi Omnes
(Let us all growl like bears)
When they gave us a Protestantized Mass, we were silent. When they smashed the altar rails, we were silent. When the nuns started dressing in mufti, we were silent. When the bishops cared more about gun control than souls, we were silent. When the mania for interfaith and ecumenism started, we were silent. And when we were told to sing hymns by Martin Luther, we sang. [Meant as a general indictment for the great mass of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, that sounds just about right. Except the one about singing hymns to Luther! - that's something that applies only to the CINOs of the de-Christianized West.]

One thing is for certain. We will never be silent again. We are guardians of something. The Bear does not want to label it, because it does not belong to this faction or that. But he thinks his readers know what he's talking about. We encourage one another -- and it is just as much readers encouraging ephemerists as the other way around. Pope Francis and his minions are learning that whatever they do in public will be challenged by some very smart and talented people. (And also, the Bear.) It obviously bothers them.

And the Bear says ultramontanism is solemn nonsense.

Now, a secular excursion. Or not really, in the context of what was said,and where it was said. Although many people might well bridle at who said it. I find Donald Trump's narcissism and the Twitter loquacity that he uses - counterproductively - to feed that narcissism (I don't follow anyone on Twitter at all, but every tweet he makes becomes instant news, so one cannot be unaware of it) as objectionable and unbearable as I do Bergoglio's narcissism and loquacity in every imaginable way. But at least, I do support Trump's objectives and vision for the United States and the world, where I totally disagree with the Bergoglian agenda, secular and ecclesial.

Oakes Spalding shares the video, the full transcript of the President's speech and his commentary on his blogsite today.

President Trump addresses
a million cheering Poles
'Together, let us all fight like the Poles -
for family, for freedom, for country, and for God'
by Oakes Spalding
MAHOUND'S PARADISE
July 6, 2017

(I'm using the full video of the speech from RT news, which includes the moving opening wreath ceremony at the Monument to the Warsaw Uprising, featuring the American and Polish presidents and their wives, and soldiers from Poland, the United States, Romania and Great Britain.

We can see sharpshooters on the roofs of surrounding buildings, country music jarringly comes in from somewhere, and at less solemn moments, various chants erupt from the crowd, including "USA! USA!" Melania Trump walks to the podium to give a short introduction at 13:00, and President Trump begins at approximately 15:15.)

The speech given by President Trump to over a million Poles in Krasiński Square, Warsaw, bears comparison to the famous speeches of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in Berlin. It was Trump's greatest speech of his presidency, and perhaps the best speech by an American president on foreign soil since Reagan.

There were many references to freedom. But there were even more references to God.

It's utterly stunning to me how in the space of only a year, this braggadocious businessman (as Michael Matt once accurately described him) and often rude and coarse candidate has transformed himself into the eloquent leader of what's left of the forces of Christian civilization.

I know what you're thinking. But, please, just watch or read the speech.

Trump was continually interrupted by the crowd of perhaps a million Poles, chanting "USA! USA!" and "Donald Trump!" although, in truth, as the video makes clear, the latter chant was usually louder.

CNN ran a companion article to the event, titled, "Conservative Polish politicians bus people in for Trump speech."

Trump's reference to the strengths of the Western community of nations including the countries of Western Europe - "We celebrate our ancient heroes ... cherish inspiring works that honor God ... We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression" - perhaps should be seen as a testimony to what we once were or could be again, not a strictly accurate statement of present reality. Unless smirks in Hollywood and Jihad marches through central London count.

But if there is to be a turnaround, this kind of leadership is what is required. And what better place to start it than in the same city where another talk sparked a turnaround almost forty years ago. It was a homily given by John Paul II upon his return to Poland, also to a crowd estimated at one million. And as the President noted today, that talk, too, was interrupted - "We want God!" the people cried.

Perhaps they were bused in by conservative politicians.

The full transcript may be read here:
http://mahoundsparadise.blogspot.com/2017/07/speech-of-his-presidency-together-let.html

Here is George Weigel's testimonial to a friend and fellow Catholic fighter. He has rewritten it from an earlier version in the National Review in which he sought to lay the lion's share of the blame for Cardinal Pell's current woes with the Australian justice system and the Australian media at the foot of unnamed Vatican prelates he assumes to actively resent the financial housecleaning efforts of Pell. A hypothesis that seems to me as unrealistic as it is implausible for obvious commonsense reasons that I pointed out in a previous post...

Fifty years of friendship
with Cardinal Pell
Had Pell not become archbishop of Melbourne, and later cardinal-archbishop of Sydney,
Australian Catholicism today would probably resemble the Irish Church, from which
the Church Down Under largely descends: scandal-ridden, demoralized, intellectually shoddy,
and somewhere out on the far periphery of the New Evangelization.
by George Weigel
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT
July 5, 2017

Mons. Thomas A. Whelan, my pastor when I was growing up in Baltimore, was a striking character: Princeton friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald; former Wall Street broker; high-ranking Army chaplain in World War II; world traveler; founding rector of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.

The latter two roles led to some creative thinking about arranging “coverage” at the cathedral during the summer, when he could be found abroad: one by one and year by year, Msgr. Whelan brought to Baltimore newly-ordained Australian priests who had studied in Rome, wanted to visit the U.S., and could use some money.

And so, precisely fifty years ago this month, a tall, gangly Aussie named George Pell entered my life. By the end of August 1967 he had become a fast friend of my family. Little did he nor I know that the next half-century would lead us into the same foxholes in various ecclesiastical battles; or to a shared friendship with a Polish priest, pope, and saint; or into synods, consistories, papal elections, and other adventures.

We’re both a little slower and a little heavier than we were in the summer of ’67, when, if memory serves, I helped introduce the future cardinal to Frisbee at the beach. But the friendship is even closer and it is one of the great blessings of my life.

That summer, Father Pell was heading for doctoral studies in history at Oxford after ordination in Rome from the Pontifical Urban University (horsemeat was a staple on the menu in his day). His intellectual gifts might have marked him out for a scholarly career. But Providence (and John Paul II) had other plans, and rather than teaching history full-time, George Pell made history, becoming the defining figure of 21st-century Catholicism in Australia.

Had Pell not become archbishop of Melbourne, and later cardinal-archbishop of Sydney, it’s a reasonable bet that Australian Catholicism today would resemble the Irish Church from which the Church Down Under largely descends: scandal-ridden, demoralized, intellectually shoddy, and somewhere out on the far periphery of the New Evangelization. Thanks to Pell’s courage in facing-down the Australian forces of Catholic Lite, the Church in Oz today has a fighting chance.

Cardinal Pell’s accomplishment has not been cost-free. Australia is a contact-sport country, and that national tendency to hit hard extends to both the Aussie media and to intra-ecclesiastical life. George Pell’s enemies, and their media lapdogs, have not caviled to lie about him for decades.

Perhaps the most absurd charge was that this man, whose sartorial style rings up “Salvation Army Thrift Shop,” kept a house full of Church finery to satisfy his vanity. As it happens (and as I wrote at the time), I had just stayed in the cardinal’s house when this nonsense appeared; I hadn’t seen a vestment anywhere, but had noted thousands of books and the current issues of every major opinion journal in the English-speaking world.

More recently, the calumnies have become much darker, as the man who designed and implemented the Australian Church’s first vigorous response to the sexual abuse of the young has been charged with being an abuser.

[Weigel appears to forget that these accusations against Pell date back to four decades and were always in circulation while he was Archbishop of Sydney; that in fact, one accusation in 2002, by someone who already was a career criminal at the time he made the charges, was dismissed by a judge after an inquiry; and that the accusations were recycled in early 2010 at the time Benedict XVI was considering Pell to be Prefect of Bishops. The calumnies against Pell have not just recently 'darkened' - they were always very dark, indeed, but now, the Australian police want to bring him to court. Unless, of course, another judicial inquiry - as fair, one hopes, as that which cleared him in 2002 - can prove them wrong.]

His friends are confident that the charges, like other fanciful allegations the cardinal has consistently denied and of which he has been exonerated, will be shown to be gross falsehoods – not least because we believe Pell is telling the truth when he flatly and forcefully denies the current accusations.

There is a new twist to this dirty business, however. Since 2014, Cardinal Pell has been responsible for draining the Vatican financial swamp of corruptions that had become epidemic, ingrained, and virtually institutionalized.

Given the stakes and the sleaziness involved, it would not be surprising to learn that some who would be most adversely effected by Pell’s success in Vatican financial reform may have been generating false accusations now in play in the Australian judicial system. [Except that these accusations were made before Pell came to the Vatican in 2013.] Australia, it seems, is not the only place where hardball is played, and in very unsavory forms.

Cardinal George Pell is a big man in every sense of the word and his stamina under assault is entirely admirable. Its deepest root, however, is not his native combativeness but Pell’s faith. Its solidity, and the courage to which that rock-solid faith gives rise, may be what aggravates his foes the most.

It’s also what inspires his legion of friends, among whom I am honored to number myself – for fifty years and counting.

I've been missing a great resource by not consulting the site of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia more often, in which Archbishop Charles Chaput, who deserves to be a cardinal in every way more than all of his colleagues combined who have been made cardinal by Pope Francis, writes a weekly column. From everything I had read about him and by him, I had thought since the Benedict years that he has all the qualities and potential to become the first pope from the USA, although some early declarations by him during this pontificate turned me off. But he has since 'reverted' and is apparently back off the Bergoglian track...

Romans 1:21-27 speaks to
the ungodly sexual permissiveness today
[A reply to James Martin's crusading LGBT advocacy]
By Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
catholicphilly.com
July 6, 2017

Christians are always, in a sense, outsiders. We have the joy and privilege to be a leaven for good in society. That’s an exhilarating vocation. It means working for as much justice and virtue in human affairs as we can. We have a special obligation to serve the weak and the poor, and to treat even those who hate us with love.

But while we’re in the world and for the world, we’re never finally of the world. And we need to understand what that means.

Writing in the mid-first century to “all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints” — and despite the dangers and frustrations he himself faced — St. Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed …” (Rom 1:7, 16-17).

Paul’s Letter to the Romans became a key text of the New Testament. The Church has always revered it as part of the inspired Word of God and incorporated it into her thought and practice. The books of Scripture, even when they’re morally demanding, are not shackles. They’re part of God’s story of love for humanity. They’re guide rails that lead us to real dignity and salvation.

That’s a good thing. Much of human history – far too much — is a record of our species’ capacity for self-harm. The Word of God is an expression of his mercy. It helps us to become the people of integrity God created us to be. As Paul reminds us, we’re “called to be saints.”

Sometimes Scripture’s lessons toward that end can be hard. But God cannot lie. His Word always speaks the truth. And the truth, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel, makes us free. This is why Christians must never be ashamed of God’s Word – even when it’s inconvenient.

Which brings us to the heart of my comments this week.

In Romans 1:21-27, speaking of the men and women of his time “who by their wickedness suppress the truth,” Paul wrote:

---

“… for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools….

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

---

[Not surprisingly, these unstintingly direct Pauline observations are getting cited a lot these days in answer to the unstopped and seemingly accelerating 'gay creep' in the church of Bergoglio.]

If reading that passage makes us uneasy, it should. Many of Paul’s Roman listeners had the same response. Jesus didn’t come to affirm us in our sins and destructive behaviors – whatever they might be — but to redeem us. Paul’s message was as resented in some quarters then as it is now. In an age of sexual confusion and disorder, calls to chastity are not just unwelcome. They’re despised. But that doesn’t diminish the truth of the words Paul wrote, or their urgency for our own time.

What we do with our bodies matters. Sex is linked intimately to human identity and purpose. If our lives have no higher meaning than what we invent for ourselves, then sex is just another kind of modeling clay. We can shape it any way we please. But if our lives do have a higher purpose – and as Christians, we find that purpose in the Word of God — then so does our sexuality.

Acting in ways that violate that purpose becomes a form of self-abuse; and not just self-abuse, but a source of confusion and suffering for the wider culture. The fact that an individual’s body might incline him or her to one sort of damaging sexual behavior, or to another very different sort, doesn’t change this.

This can be a difficult teaching. It’s easy to see why so many people try to finesse or soften or ignore Paul’s words. In a culture of conflict, accommodation is always the least painful path. But it leads nowhere. It inspires no one. “Fitting in” to a society of deeply dysfunctional sexuality results in the ruin that we see in so many other dying Christian communities.

In his recent book “Building a Bridge” (HarperOne), Father James Martin, S.J., calls the Church to a spirit of respect, compassion and sensitivity in dealing with persons with same-sex attraction. This is good advice. It makes obvious sense. He asks the same spirit from persons in the LGBT community when dealing with the Church. Father Martin is a man whose work I often admire. “Building a Bridge,” though brief, is written with skill and good will.

But what the text regrettably lacks is an engagement with the substance of what divides faithful Christians from those who see no sin in active same-sex relationships. The Church is not simply about unity – as valuable as that is – but about unity in God’s love rooted in truth. ['In truth' - is precisely what we are not getting from the 'teaching' and preaching of the reigning pope! As I have often had occasion to remark, truth - unless it is his own notion of what is 'truth' - has never seemed to be any concern for Jorge Bergoglio, or his fellow Jesuits to whom relativism has become second nature. Otherwise we would never have been afflicted with Amoris laetitia Chapter 8.]

If the Letter to the Romans is true, then persons in unchaste relationships (whether homosexual or heterosexual) need conversion, not merely affirmation. If the Letter to the Romans is false, then Christian teaching is not only wrong but a wicked lie. Dealing with this frankly is the only way an honest discussion can be had.

And that honesty is what makes another recent book – “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay” by Daniel Mattson (Ignatius) – so extraordinarily moving and powerful. As Cardinal Robert Sarah writes in the Foreword, Mattson’s candor about his own homosexuality, his struggles and failures, and his gradual transformation in Jesus Christ “bears witness to the mercy and goodness of God, to the efficacy of his grace, and to the veracity of the teachings of his Church.”

In the words of Daniel Mattson himself:

---

“We cannot remain reluctant to speak about the beauty of the Church’s teaching on sexuality and sexual identity for fear that it will appear ‘unloving,’ ‘irrational,’ or ‘unreal.’

We need to love the world enough to speak about the Christian vision of sexual reality, confident that God’s creation of man as male and female is truly part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we are called to proclaim to a lost and confused world.

“We need to be a light for the world and speak passionately about the richness of the Church’s understanding of human sexuality. We can’t place the Good News of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality under a bushel any longer, for the world desperately needs the truth we have (p. 123).”

---

Spoken from experience. Spoken from the heart. No one could name the truth more clearly.

Very apropos to Mons. Chaput's thoughts above:

Gay orgy scandal at the Vatican
and what it says of this Pontificate
Bergoglio embraces far-left ideology and the LGBT agenda
by Jerome Corsi
Infowars.com
JULY 5, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Evidence emerging from the Vatican in recent days strongly suggests Pope Francis is transforming the Catholic Church into a socialist political organization that embraces the LGBT agenda, in complete rejection of the traditional pro-family religious orientation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

Last week, Pope Francis fired the Vatican’s top theologian, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who had a reputation as a staunch defender of the traditional family.

Pope Francis replaced Cardinal Mueller with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s second-in-command, the more liberal, Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer. [It remains to be seen what stuff Ladaria is really made of, but as someone rightly remarked, the CDF shuffle is not about ideology. No matter who heads the CDF, this pope considers it a useless accessory which he will continue to blithely ignore unless he can use it for his purposes. Perhaps more alarming than Ladaria's supposed ideology is that he is a Jesuit, and as such, predisposed to be quietly servile to the wishes of his fellow Jesuit who also happens to be his pope.]

Then, on Thursday, July 5, the Daily Mail in London reported Vatican police had broken up a gay orgy occurring in a Vatican-owned apartment belonging to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Ironically, this was also the Vatican department Pope Francis had assigned to investigate the Catholic Church’s pedophile sex scandal involving priests in the United States as well as various other countries around the world. [Nothing ironic about it at all, but irrelevant. A landlord cannot necessarily guarantee the bona fides of a tenant who nonetheless pays his rent and was vouched for by the cardinal president of a pontifical council.]

The apartment was apparently the residence of the male secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, one of Pope Francis’s key advisors, and the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, another key part of the Roman Curia responsible for administering the activities of the Catholic Church worldwide.

Neither development surprised reporter George Neumayr, whose recent book, The Political Pope: How Pope Francis is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives, predicted Pope Francis will accelerate the transformation of the Catholic Church into a leftist political organization after former Pope Benedict XVI dies.

“Pope Francis inherited Cardinal Muller from his predecessor and was itching to sack him,” Neumayr explained to Infowars.com in an email.
“Pope Francis was annoyed by Muller’s opposition to the relativism of this pontificate, particularly Muller’s resistance to the pope’s plan to relax the Church’s teaching on adultery,” Neumayr continued.

“Muller also opposed the pope’s policy of distributing Communion to divorced-and-remarried Catholics,” Neumayr added.

Neumayr interpreted the move as Pope Francis distancing himself from the more conservative, traditional papacy of Pope Benedict XVI.

“By dropping Muller, Pope Francis is trying to free himself for once and all from the conservative restraints of Pope Benedict XVI, whose opposition to the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ Pope Francis always disliked,” Neumayr explained.

“Appropriately, Pope Francis has replaced Muller with a fellow Jesuit, the Spanish archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, who appears willing to serve as a rubber stamp for the pope’s liberalism,” Neumayr concluded.

Neumayr also commented on the developing Vatican gay sex orgy scandal. "This is proof the gay mafia has reached the highest echelons of the Catholic Church,” Neumayr told Infowars.com in an exclusive telephone interview. “Instead of disbanding the gay mafia, Pope Francis evidently has allowed the gay mafia to burrow deeper into the Vatican.”

Neumayr referenced the decision Pope Francis made in July 2013 to appoint Monsignor Battista Ricca, a veteran Vatican diplomat, to serve as his representative, or “prelate” at the Vatican Bank despite allegations of various gay sexual scandals that plagued Ricca since 1999, when he was sent by the Vatican to Montevideo, Uruguay.

“The ecclesiastical head of the Vatican Bank is still Monsignor Ricca,” Neumayr commented, “and he was entangled in a similar gay sexual scandal before his elevation to his current position.” [Worse, actually, because in his last diplomatic posting, once he became charge d'affaires between nuncios, he gave his live-in Swiss lover a salaried position in the Nunciature. Not to mention at least two documented encounters with the police of Montevideo, Uruguay. See Sandro Magister's July 18, 2013, dossier on Ricca days after the pope named him his prelate (and therefore, also, his eyes and ears) at the IOR: chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350561bdc4.htm...

Neumayr noted that Pope Francis was aware of the sexual scandal allegations made against Ricca, but Pope Francis decided to disregard the charges when he decided to go ahead and make Ricca 'spiritual director' of the Vatican Bank anyway.

“No one should be surprised by these episodes — either the firing of Cardinal Mueller or the emerging gay orgy sex scandal,” Neumayr suggested. “Both are consistent with the direction in which Pope Francis is taking the Catholic Church,” he concluded. [Except I would phrase that last sentence differently - and forgive my singleminded insistence on this: "Both are consistent with the Bergoglianism that this pope is seeking to impose on the Church" or, "...with the church of Bergoglio he seems determined to establish in place of the one true Church of Christ".]

Another Vatican ‘reform’ cast in doubt
By Phil Lawler
CATHOLICCULTURE.ORG
July 5, 2017

The timing isn’t perfect, unfortunately, for the Vatican’s offer of free treatment for Charlie Gard at Bambino Gesu Hospital — just after an AP investigative report uncovered serious problems with medical care at the Vatican-run institution. But there is solace in the news that the Vatican now recognizes that the hospital needed administrative reforms.

The first response to the AP story — an insistence that the complaints uncovered in a 2014 investigation were entirely unjustified, coupled with a threat to sue AP for publicizing them — was not terribly reassuring. Haven’t we seen this pattern from Church leaders in the past, in response to other sorts of complaints?
- Your complaints are entirely false. It never happened.
- If you make those charges public, we’ll sue.
- Anyway we’ve taken steps to make sure it never happens again.
[At least, so far the Vatican hasn't done the Obama shirk - 'George Bush did it' - about whatever was wrong in the US government. But if this controversy continues, I can already see whose head will be the first pinata - Cardinal Bertone who made Bambino Gesu one of his pet projects as Secretary of State.]

There’s another irony in the news that when the first Vatican investigation in 2014 reported grave problems with medical care, a follow-up investigation led by Sister Carol Keehan [nuns-on-the-bus sparkplug] determined that actually everything was fine and Bambino Gesu was an exemplary institution. [Maybe Keehan did not realize Bertone had anything to do with Bambino Gesu, but if she had known...?]


This was not the first time that Sister Keehan gave rave reviews to a medical program that other analysts had deemed disastrous. As you may recall, she was the leading Catholic cheerleader for Obamacare.