Here's an isolated voice of sense completely drowned out in the cacophony of unconditional and unmitigated Francis-frenzy in the media, secular and Catholic. Fr. Longenecker, to those who follow the Catholic blogosphere, is a former Anglican who turned Catholic and may be more familiar from his blog entitled 'Standing on my head'. Here, he states a very obvious fact that 99.5% of those who write and comment on the Vatican choose to ignore or overlook. That he chooses to say it baldly constitutes a genuine heresy against the herd mentality that prevails and has virtually taken over public opinion.
Seeing Benedict behind
Francis's first moves as Pope
Many of Francis's first acts of governance as Pope
Have been simply finishing things begun by Benedict,
not radical breaks with him as the media portrays it
[nor to be credited largely to the new Pope's reform 'mission']
by Fr Dwight Longenecker
July 21, 2013
St. Francis was once told to rebuild Christ’s Church, and since the announcement of his name, it has been predicted that the new pope would be a reformer. This is certainly the slant the Associated Press has put on a recent legal update in the Vatican.
The AP headline screams, “Pope Criminalizes Leaks and Sex Abuse in First Laws,” while Drudge Report takes a more sensational approach: “The Pope Cracks Down.”
London’s Daily Telegraph also reported on the beefed up Vatican rules and focused on the rules concerning the sexual abuse of children. The Telegraph reports that David Clohessy, the director of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), criticized the laws against child abuse because they are no more than “administrative tinkering” that applies only to the Vatican City State.
The papers have sensationalized this story and portrayed it as part of a brisk crackdown on corruption in the Vatican by Pope Francis. The implication is that the Vatican was riddled with corruption under Pope Benedict, and that Francis is the new broom sweeping the room clean.
When one stops to think it through, however, could it be possible that in just three months the new pope has been able not only to write an encyclical but put sweeping legal reforms into place? The laws have an international dimension, linking the Vatican legal system to global treaties and global crime.
This sort of thing is complicated. Did he do all this himself in just three months without any help? Probably not. These things take time – and especially in Rome, which is not called the Eternal City for nothing.
In fact, the sensational stories manufactured by the papers are inaccurate and misleading. Like the encyclical, the updated laws are really the work of Pope Benedict.
The more reliable Catholic News Service explains that the legal reforms now being put in place were initiated by Pope Benedict three years ago. Rather than being the radical reforming Pope, cracking down on sex abuse and financial skullduggery, Francis is s domply implementing the reforms and teaching begun by his predecessor.
[But all this was clearly explained when the amended laws were presented to the media by the deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Relations, Mons. Mamberti. Most of media simply chose to ignore it because it goes against their narrative of "BAD BAD NE'ER-DO-WELL BENEDICT compared to THE PLUPERFECT POPE FRANCIS". Not to mention that the same media had in fact reported on some of the reforms at the time Benedict initiated them!Only to be wiped out now by their willful Benedict-amnesia-cum-Benedict-bashing. amnesia about his achievements and bashing him for everything that is wrong with the Church and the Vatican.
Clohessy’s criticism that the changes are no more than legal tinkering in the tiny Vatican City State is simply wrong. Exactly the opposite is the truth – the new laws were put into effect not to narrow down the Vatican’s laws, but to widen them out.
The reforms align the Vatican’s outdated laws with the laws of the Italian government, and more importantly, with international law.
CNA explains that the laws are a response to the globalization of crime. Recognizing increased mobility and the global nature of crime, the new laws allow the Vatican authorities to prosecute citizens who commit crimes while they are away from the Vatican. Furthermore, the new laws bring the Vatican into line with the laws of various international conventions.
Rather than merely tinkering with the legalities of the Vatican, the new laws have an important international dimension.
While the mainstream media were busy sensationalizing the report and focusing on the aspects of child sexual abuse and financial corruption, they ignored other important aspects of the new Vatican laws. In line with international conventions the laws also condemn apartheid, torture, unjust war, human trafficking, and genocide.
No doubt Pope Francis will continue to reform the Vatican, but those who believe he will sweep through the whole Church with reforming zeal will probably be disappointed.
The signs are that Pope Francis will encourage reform at the local level in the Church by bouncing many matters back to the local bishops. [Let us hope not, lest we get into another bishops-autonomy disaster like when dealing with priest sex-offenders was exclusively their jurisdiction! However, Francis did tell the Italian bishops - and he is Primate of Italy and Bishop of Rome - that it is up to them to pursue the battle to uphold Catholic principles on the major social issues of the day, e.g., abortion, euthanasia, reproductive 'libertyies', same-sex unions.]
He will lead in a reform movement
[of the Church's governance and perhaps, necessarily, of its central structures] and expect the local leadership to follow his example. He will probably not impose radical reform from the top down.
[Obviously, when we speak of reform in the Church, we do not refer to changing her position on what Benedict XVI always called 'non-negotiable principles' - the very issues which the Pope wants to let the bishops fight out on the local level. But at some point, he will have to take the lead. I do not doubt he will have to do so, sooner or later. He has to do so, on the 'local' level, to begin with, as Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy, following his own directive to the other Italian bishops.]
The core problem with the mainstream media’s reporting is that their mindset is conditioned by the hermeneutic of revolution. A “hermeneutic” is a method of interpreting data; it is a paradigm for viewing the world, and the secular paradigm is the Hegelian concept of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. To put it simply, the secularist views human history as a series of revolutions. Change always entails a violent rupture with the past – a clash and a conflict out of which a new and better solution is born.
Rather than a hermeneutic of rupture, the Catholic understanding is one of continuity and constant reformation. The secular media will try to paint Pope Francis as a radical reformer – a revolutionary even. Instead they will find that he is a steady hand seeking to cleanse and reform the Church just as his two predecessors did: with a step by step process that brings the light of the Gospel to cleanse a Church which time and again falls back into human error, corruption, and sin.
[It is much too kind to attribute a Hegelian hermeneutic to the media's motivation in glorifying Francis at the expense of Benedict. Their motivation is sheer nastiness - they don't like Benedict, so they are falling all over themselves trying to outdo the other in needlessly apotheosizing Francis, who has more than enough virtues not to require their dubious input!]
Francis’s reforms are really, therefore, nothing more than the Catholic Church doing her job: calling humanity to regular repentance, reform, and constant conversion. Rather than a radical revolution, this is a natural and ongoing part of Catholic life, and Pope Francis leads the whole Church in this practice of repentance and reform, just as his illustrious predecessors did before him. [But secular reporters and commentators would not even think of that at all - it's bad enough that most of the Catholic commentariat don't!.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/08/2013 17:26]