BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

By Josh Kush on August 11, 2016.

Can Amoris Laetitia (AL) be read in light of Catholic tradition? This is the question which confronts any serious Catholic who wants to “think with the Church” but who has serious concerns about Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, particularly Chapter 8. In a recent interview with Vatican Insider, Rocco Buttiglione, renowned authority on the philosophy of St. John Paul II, claimed that the teaching of AL regarding communion for the divorced and remarried is “perfectly traditional” and that it is “grafted on a path whose foundations were laid by Pope John Paul II.” A similar view was expressed by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Pope Francis’ chosen presenter and interpreter of AL, who said that AL constitutes an “organic development” of the teaching of John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio (FC).

But if this is so, why is there so much controversy surrounding the document? Why is it that so many faithful Catholics have expressed grave misgivings about it, as when Josef Seifert, a close associate of John Paul II and former director of the International Academy of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Chile, asked publicly regarding AL, “How can Jesus and His most Holy Mother read … the words of the Pope … without crying?” Or when a petition to the College of Cardinals signed by 45 Catholic philosophers and theologians, including Fr. Aidan Nichols OP, formerly the John Paul II Lecturer in Theology at Oxford University and arguably the most accomplished theologian in the Anglophone world, said of AL: “There is no doubt that it constitutes a grave danger to Catholic faith and morals.” Unfortunately, an honest reading of AL, especially ch. 8, reveals that its teaching does in fact constitute a rupture with the magisterium of John Paul II and with the uninterrupted tradition that preceded his papacy: Not only does the document depart from the traditional theological principles enunciated by John Paul II, but it also amounts to a direct repudiation of his teaching, so closely does the magisterium of John Paul anticipate – and reject – a number of ideas found in AL.

The most obvious example of a rupture with traditional teaching concerns Communion for the divorced and remarried. John Paul II, in the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (FC) issued in 1982, upheld the Church’s perennial practice of “not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried,” unless they “take upon themselves the duty to live in complete continence.” Emphasizing the permanence of the discipline, the Pope insisted that it is “based on Sacred Scripture” (84). In 1994, after a number of bishops and theologians had put forward certain pastoral proposals, strikingly similar to those found in AL, allowing for exceptions to the discipline in specific cases, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under the auspices of John Paul II intervened and reaffirmed the traditional discipline, which it called “the constant and universal practice” of the Church: “This practice, which is presented as binding, cannot be modified because of different situations” (5).

Despite this history, AL offers “the help of the sacraments” (apparently Penance and the Eucharist) for such persons “in some cases,” since pastoral discernment can “recognize that in a particular situation no grave fault exists” (AL 305, note 351; AL 300, note 336). That this involves persons who have not taken upon themselves the duty to live as brother and sister seems clear, since the passage speaks of “an objective situation of sin” (305). While some have argued that article 305 in AL speaks only of those in certain “irregular situations” and so should not be read as applying to the divorced and remarried, it should be noted that article 300, which is clearly concerned with the divorced and remarried, uses almost the exact same language as 305 and contains an almost identical footnote to note 351, the footnote which references both Confession and the Eucharist. As the eminent German philosopher Robert Spaemann commented regarding AL’s teaching, “Article 305 together with footnote 351 … directly contradicts article 84 of Pope John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio,” adding, “That it is an issue of a breach emerges doubtlessly for every thinking person, who knows the respective texts.”

But AL’s permission of Communion for the divorced and remarried is only the terminus of a theological argument which begins earlier in the document, and it is in the earlier premises of AL’s argument that the real, epochal departure from established Catholic teaching occurs. For the traditional prohibition against Communion for those in “irregular” situations was itself based on a number of theological premises which lead inflexibly to the conclusion that such persons could not receive the Eucharist. If there was to be a change in the perennial discipline of the Church, one of those premises had to give: either divorce and remarriage must be relegated to something less than what the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by John Paul II, calls “public and permanent adultery” (CCC 2384), or the Eucharist must made available to all, no matter how grave their sins. AL primarily takes the first tack, with a few subtle nods toward the second.

But how can one reduce the gravity of that which the Lord himself explicitly called adultery? The primary way AL does so is by presenting the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage as an “ideal” (passim). This is arguably the leitmotiv of the whole document, and it colors the entirety of ch. 8’s treatment of what it calls, tellingly, “weakness.” The implications of such language are obvious: few people, if any, can reasonably be expected to live up to an ideal, and hence ordinary Christians are likely not at fault, or not completely so, for failing to follow Church teaching. Thus AL describes various “irregular” situations – including presumably those of the divorced and remarried, some of which it describes in admiring terms – as realizing the Christian “ideal” in “at least a partial and analogous way” (292). Pastoral discernment for those in such “irregular” situations must therefore take account of people’s “limits” (305), because of which a person might find himself in a “concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin” (301). In such a case, a person’s conscience can “recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response that can be given to God and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits.” (303).

What is so striking about this way of formulating the Church’s teaching on conjugal morality is that it was anticipated, almost verbatim, by the writings of John Paul II, especially in Veritatis Splendor (VS) and in Familiaris Consortio:

It would be a very serious error … to conclude that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an “ideal” which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man. (VS 103)

Married people … cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future …. The “law of gradualness” … cannot be identified with “gradualness of the law,” as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations. (FC 34)

It is impossible to read the above passages from John Paul II without hearing echoes of ch. 8 of Amoris Laetitia. In presenting Church teaching as an “ideal” which those in an enduring situation of grave sin “realize” in a “partial way,” in describing certain sinful situations as approved by God because they do not allow a person to act otherwise “without further sin,” AL just is promoting “different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations,” that is, “gradualness of the law,” despite its protestations to the contrary.

For what AL suggests, while again disclaiming that it does so, is that in some situations certain persons are simply incapable of keeping the commandments of God. This is clearly implied, not only in the passages cited above, but throughout ch. 8. Take, for instance, AL’s claim that some Catholics are “not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law” (AL 295). Since the context is the document’s treatment of Catholics who are only civilly married or those involved in simple cohabitation, it is clear that those who aren’t in a position to “fully carry out” the law are persons living in a gravely sinful situation which persists over time. Leaving aside the question of how one could be incapable of understanding the obligation to marry (apart from some grave mental impairment) or how not appreciating (i.e., rejecting) the law could constitute a mitigating factor, the more pertinent question is: What can it mean to partially carry out the law in such a case? It seems that partially carrying out the law of God is the equivalent of not carrying out the law of God. For as John Paul II insisted in VS, the negative precepts of the law, like those forbidding adultery and fornication, “have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken” (52); they do not admit of “degrees” of fulfillment (34). For how could one “partially” fornicate? Or “partially” commit adultery? If the speed limit is 75 mph, does a person partially keep the law against speeding by driving only 85 mph instead of 95? In contrast to this pessimism concerning the ability of the faithful to observe the commandments, John Paul II, reflecting what he called “the constant teaching of the Church’s tradition” (VS 102), said:

It is in the saving Cross of Jesus, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, in the Sacraments which flow forth from the pierced side of the Redeemer, that believers find the grace and the strength always to keep God’s holy law, even amid the gravest of hardships. (VS 103)

While allowance is made for occasional lapses from the law, the traditional teaching definitively precludes an enduring inability to keep the law, apart from some serious psychological malady. Put simply, for John Paul and Catholic tradition, there just aren’t any Catholics who aren’t in a position to carry out God’s law.

The second way AL attempts to reduce the gravity of divorce and remarriage is by presenting the commandments of Christ and the Church as mere “rules” (passim), which, like most rules, admit of certain exceptions. Thus, when speaking of access to the sacraments for the divorced and remarried, AL speaks of the different “consequences or effects of a rule” (300) and later argues that it is “reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule,” since such “rules … cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations” (AL 304), citing Thomas Aquinas in support of this principle. Apparently, in a “concrete situation which does not allow [someone] to act differently” (AL 301), moral laws may not apply. But as numerous commentators have pointed out, while St. Thomas does acknowledge certain positive precepts which do not hold in exceptional cases, he also affirms certain negative moral norms which oblige always and in every situation, citing in particular the laws against adultery and fornication (see Quaestiones Quodlibetales, 9, q.7, a.2). According to Aquinas, such actions have “deformity inseparably attached to them” and can never be approved, regardless of the complexity of the situation.

However, an even more vigorous proponent of exceptionless moral norms was, not surprisingly, John Paul II, who in VS rejected the idea that there are no moral precepts which “provide absolutely for all particular situations”:

The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception. (VS 52)

The negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain concrete actions or kinds of behavior as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room, in any morally acceptable way, for the “creativity” of any contrary determination whatsoever. (VS 67)

When it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone. It makes no difference whether one is the master of the world or the “poorest of the poor” on the face of the earth. (VS 96)

Indeed, John Paul II described the defense of the permanent and universal validity of certain moral norms against various revisionist theories then rampant in theological faculties and seminaries as the “central theme” of Veritatis Splendor (115). Given the forcefulness of its teaching on the existence of absolute moral laws, it is astonishing that AL could affirm the contrary.

Apart from these strictly theological departures from the traditional magisterium as embodied by John Paul II, AL’s reduction of the gravity of divorce and remarriage is also reflected in the dramatically different language it uses in comparison with previous Church teaching. For example, John Paul II’s FC speaks of the divorced and remarried as having “rejected the Lord’s command” and of the necessity of “repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ” (84). On the other hand, AL describes “irregular” relationships from cohabitation to divorce and remarriage as “situations of weakness and imperfection” (296) and calls the divorced and remarried “living members” (299) of the Church, presuming the state of grace. While, as we have seen, the Catechism bluntly describes the divorced and remarried as living in “adultery,” AL speaks of “a second union” which can exhibit “proven fidelity, generous self giving, [and] Christian commitment” (298), and even entertains the notion that the “faithfulness” of such unions is “endangered” if those involved are denied sexual intimacy, misquoting and misapplying Vatican II in the process (note 329). Is it possible that one can assent to the teaching of the Catechism that such unions are “public and permanent adultery,” and then describe them in the way AL does?

Having thus laid the groundwork for a change in discipline by softening the Church’s traditional teaching on conjugal morality, AL opens the sacraments to the divorced and remarried, since such persons “may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such” (305). Again and again, AL stresses the distinction between what it calls, awkwardly, “objective sin” (297) – is there any other kind? – and subjective guilt, citing a number of mitigating factors and asserting that “it can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace” (301). It even cites the 2000 Declaration Concerning the Admission to Holy Communion of Faithful Who are Divorced and Remarried from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (PCLT) in support of this distinction. But this text of the PCLT was written precisely to counter those who appealed to subjective factors in arguing that Canon 915, the ecclesiastical canon which forbids Communion for those living in a state of manifest grave sin, did not apply to the divorced and remarried, calling “clearly misleading” any interpretation which would “set itself against the canon’s substantial content, as declared uninterruptedly by the Magisterium and by the discipline of the Church throughout the centuries” (2). As the Declaration points out concerning Communion for the divorced and remarried, consideration of subjective fault is irrelevant, since Canon 915 speaks only of “grave sin, understood objectively” (2).

But the same point was made – once again – by John Paul II, who said the divorced and remarried could not receive the Eucharist because of a “state and condition of life” which “objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church,” and then adding the second, ancillary reason of the danger of scandal (FC 84). In other words, the withholding of Communion in such a case is not because of the imputation of mortal sin, since as John Paul insisted in Ecclesia de eucharistia, “the judgment of one’s state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved.” But, as he reminded the Church, “in the case of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm,” Communion must be denied out of “pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament” (37).

But how is it even possible for a minister to determine that a person living in an enduring state of grave sin is subjectively inculpable? Absent a firm purpose to live continently, divorced and remarried persons would be involved in a deliberate choice to remain in a state contrary the law of God, not a fleeting situation of weakness or inadvertence to which mitigating factors could be applied. In describing such mitigating factors, the Catechism speaks of the diminished “imputability and responsibility of an action” (CCC 1735), not of an ongoing state. Could a confessor absolve a person who says that a resolution to practice continence is out of the question “for now,” as AL suggests? Is not a firm purpose of amendment necessary for the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Penance, as the Council of Trent teaches? Or what about a person who “knows full well the rule” but professes not to “understand” the “inherent values” (AL 301) of Christ’s word concerning divorce and remarriage? Is this not simply the equivalent of rejecting the teaching of Christ and the Church, an action which increases, rather than mitigates, guilt?

Ultimately, the adoption of AL as the pastoral practice of the Church would mean the de facto abrogation of Canon 915, which, as the PCLT reminds us, “is derived from divine law and transcends the domain of ecclesial law” (1). For why should the exceptions envisioned in AL be applied only to those in “irregular” marital situations? In authorizing pastors to make exceptions to the canon for some sins of the sexual variety, AL implicitly authorizes exceptions for any sins against the sixth commandment and indeed for all habitual public sins for those who “find it very difficult to act differently” (AL 302), as long as they don’t “flaunt” their sin or try to impose it on the Church (AL 297). In effect, AL has shifted the basis for ecclesial and Eucharistic communion from the visible and objective bonds upon which John Paul II insisted in Ecclesia de eucharistia (cf. 38) to primarily invisible and subjective ones, since it opens Communion to those who live in state of public contradiction to the faith of the Church. Given this shift, a further question arises: why should such exceptions not apply to anyone, Catholic or not, who shows signs of good will? The consequences for the Eucharistic discipline of the Church would be incalculably vast.

In a 1990 essay in America magazine, revisionist moral theologian Richard McCormick predicted that John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor would “eventually enjoy a historical status similar to that of Humani Generis,” Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical letter on certain dangerous trends in Catholic theology, which was largely ignored during and after Vatican II. Sadly, McCormick’s words appear to have proven prophetic. In a recent interview with La Civilta Cattolica, Cardinal Schönborn spoke of AL’s consistency with Catholic tradition “on the level of principles” but of a discipline which now “takes account of the endless variety of concrete situations,” apparently in contrast to FC. But as we have seen, in order to modify the discipline codified in FC 84, AL first had to circumvent the principles enshrined in Veritatis Splendor. No doubt this is why, in various places, AL reads like a sustained argument against the magisterium of John Paul II, especially VS, and against what Cardinal Schönborn called “the intransigent moralists,” who, in stressing the “intrinsece malum [intrinsically evil], suppress discussion of – by definition complex – circumstances of and situations in life.” Against such “intransigence” which uses “moral laws … as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives” (AL 305), AL puts forward an image of the Church as a “mother who welcomes [the divorced and remarried] always” (299) and who, while proposing the ideal, “treats the weak with compassion” (308) in order to “understand, forgive, accompany, hope, and above all integrate” (312) them. In VS, the landmark papal encyclical which AL fails to cite even one time but which lurks in the background as a kind of silent rebuke, John Paul II responds:

The Church’s teaching, and in particular her firmness in defending the universal and permanent validity of the precepts prohibiting intrinsically evil acts, is not infrequently seen as the sign of an intolerable intransigence, particularly with regard to the enormously complex and conflict-filled situations present in the moral life of individuals and of society of today; this intransigence is said to be in contrast with the Church’s motherhood. The Church, one hears, is lacking in understanding and compassion. But the Church’s motherhood can never in fact be separated from her teaching mission, which she must carry out as the faithful Bride of Christ, who is Truth in person.” (95)

www.onepeterfive.com/amoris-laetitia-john-paul-ii/

Thank you, David, for taking up some of the slack during my relative idleness of the past few days. In the absence of any must-post-immediately news events about the Church, I have been indulging myself in a quadrennial fascination, the Summer Olympics (in Benedict's Pontificate, it took place in 2008 and 2012). I must watch the events as they are broadcast for the first time because I do not have the luxury of seeking out dates, times and channels for replays...

Headlines, August 12-13, 2016
It's the summer doldrums, all right - no movement overnight on the 'above the fold' headlines in both Catholic news aggregators...

Canon212.com


PewSitter



Update: Both aggregators refreshed their home page this afternoon:

Canon212.com


The Papal Almoner has a Bergoglian knack for visible, attention-calling actions, in this case, an act of charity
(or act of mercy, one would say in the Pontificate which habitually used the word 'mercy' in place of 'charity'
which is a more encompassing term and is, moreover, a theological virtue) towards a busful of refugees in Rome.

Since he can only do so much for a token number of beneficiaries, one hopes he is setting an example for
other individuals and organizations to step in with similar charity to benefit the majority of Rome's refugees
and homeless, who are the Almoner's main concern (providing baths and meals for the homeless - please throw
in some clothing, as well - and swims and pizzas for the refugees) and who might feel neglected or discriminated
against, if they do not happen to be among the token beneficiaries.

PewSitter:



As for the headline about the German bishops' misplaced enthusiasm for Luther - how can a Protestant be
'a teacher of the faith', if by faith we mean the Catholic faith? - it mirrors JMB's own enthusiasm,
who called Luther 'medicine for the Church', and who apparently thinks ecumenism means a de facto denial
(or at least, glossing over) of the major doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism...

German Catholic bishops say
Luther was a ‘teacher of the faith’
by Jonathan Luxmoore

August 20, 2016

Germany’s Catholic bishops have praised Martin Luther as a “Gospel witness and teacher of the faith” and called for closer ties with Protestants.

In a 206-page report, “The Reformation in Ecumenical Perspective”, Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg, chairman of the German bishops’ ecumenical commission, said the “history of the Reformation has encountered a changeable reception in the Catholic Church, where its events and protagonists were long seen in a negative, derogatory light”.

“While the wounds are still felt to the present day, it is gratifying that Catholic theology has succeeded, in the meantime, in soberly reconsidering the events of the 16th century,” he said in the report, published this week by Germany’s Bonn-based bishops’ conference.

Bishop Feige said the “history and consequences” of the Reformation would be debated during its upcoming 500th anniversary, but added that there was consensus that previous mutual condemnations were invalid.

“Memories of the Reformation and the subsequent separation of Western Christianity are not free from pain,” Bishop Feige said. “But through lengthy ecumenical dialogue, the theological differences rooted in the period have been re-evaluated – as is documented in the work presented by our ecumenical commission.”

Martin Lazar, the Magdeburg diocesan spokesman, told Catholic News Service on Wednesday that the Reformation still caused tensions in Germany, especially “in religiously separated families.”

The bishops’ report said the “Catholic Church may recognise today what was important in the Reformation – namely, that Sacred Scripture is the centre and standard for all Christian life."

“Connected with this is Martin Luther’s fundamental insight that God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the people is proclaimed in the Gospel – that Jesus Christ is the centre of Scripture and the only mediator.”

[Those are generic and reductive statements that make it appear there are no major doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. To take just one example: Protestants do not believe in Trans-Substantiation, which for Catholics is the operative principle in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.]

The Reformation is traditionally dated from the October 1517 publication of Luther’s 95 Theses, questioning the sale of indulgences and the Gospel foundations of papal authority.

Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in January 1521 and outlawed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

The German bishops describe Luther as “a religious pathfinder, Gospel witness and teacher of the faith,” whose “concern for renewal in repentance and conversion” had not received an “adequate hearing” in Rome.

They said the reformer’s work still posed a “theological and spiritual challenge” and had “ecclesial and political implications for understanding the Church and the Magisterium.”

[1. Are we supposed to forget all the hateful and unfounded statements Luther made about the Catholic Church - and even about Jesus - and think he only said them because he was angry and did not mean any of it?
2. What possible theological and spiritual challenges could Luther have posed about Catholicism that have not already been explored and explicated more than adequately and in depth by the great thinkers of the Church, from the early Fathers and subsequent Doctors, and by great eminences like Blessed John Henry Newman and Joseph Ratzinger? Or that were not answered by the great theologians of the Council of Trent?]

The report said a joint Catholic-Lutheran statement in 1980 commemorating the Augsburg Confession, which set out the new Lutheran faith, had been crucial in bringing churches closer, while another ecumenical statement in 1983, on the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth, had started an “intensive engagement” with the reformer’s work.

A historic 1999 joint declaration on the doctrine of justification was a “milestone in ecumenical dialogue,” the report said, by recognising that remaining differences should “no longer have a church-dividing effect.” [How can Protestant unbelief in Trans-substantiation, for example, not be church-dividing?]

The bishops’ report includes June 2015 conciliatory letters between the German bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and Lutheran Bishop Heinrich Strohm, president of the Evangelical Church of Germany, outlining plans for a 2017 ecumenical pilgrimage to the Holy Land and a Lent service devoted to “healing memories.”

In an interview with CNS, the ecumenical commission’s deputy chairman, Bishop Heinz Algermissen of Fulda, said Catholic-Lutheran ties had improved since the Second Vatican Council, but that churches must work for “visible unity, not just reconciled diversity.”

“This means not only praying together, but meeting the challenge of speaking with one voice as Christians when we are all challenged by aggressive atheism and secularism, as well as by [radicalised] Islam. Otherwise we will lose more and more ground,” he said. [But have the Protestants of Europe, to begin with - separately by denomination or collectively through one of their many federations - ever made a statement condemning aggressive atheism, secularism and radicalized Islam? The one Christian church that has done that clearly and consistently - shaming JMB in this respect - is the Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly not the other Orthodox churches or the Anglican Communion, for that matter.]

“In commemorating the Reformation, we cannot just see it as a jubilee, but should also admit our guilt for past errors and repent on both sides for the past 500 years,” he added. [For the Protestants - and JMB and his misguided myrmidons - the fifth centenary is a cause for jubilee, but it cannot be for the Church, for which Luther's schism was one of the blackest episodes which cannot be whitewashed by the prevailing historical revisionism about Luther.]

Catholics make up 29 per cent of Germany’s 82 million inhabitants, with the Evangelical Church of Germany accounting for 27 per cent, although all denominations have faced declining membership.

[What does it say of the Evangelical Church that in the country of its birth, its membership is now less than that of the parent Church which was deemed so deficient by Luther and all Protestant sect founders after him that they formed their own 'churches'? And now, look how fragmented they are - 33000 denominations and counting, against the one, holy Catholic and true Church of Christ!]

Friday, August 05, 2016.

Appeal to Cardinals: Letter in The Tablet

Last weekend The Tablet responded to the publication of the Appeal to Cardinals over the interpretation of Amoris laetitia - an appeal for a clarification of the document - with a feature article by Fr Gerald O'Collins SJ, a retired theologian. O'Collins' line was that the Church does not do clarifications, because that would lead to an infinite regress. He goes on to defend a liberal interpretation of Amoris laetitia. This weekend The Tablet has published a letter from me in response.

Fr Gerald O'Collins comments on the appeal to the cardinals by 45 Catholic academics which seeks a clarification of the teaching of Amoris laetitia (Features, 30th July). He claims that clarifications of teachings and documents are alien to the Church's usual practice. Anyone who takes the trouble to look in Denzinger, the handbook of Catholic teaching, will see, however, that it is stuffed with clarifications. Nor has the stream of clarificatory verbiage dried up. Indeed, the Vatican Press Office seems recently to have taken on a semi-official function of clarifying papal remarks in real time.

The test of whether a clarification is needed is the degree of confusion a document has generated. If there is broad agreement about what a document means, and the author is happy with this agreement, then further clarification is not necessary. If a document is generating diametrically opposite interpretations, then only a clarification will enable it to convey the meaning its author intended.

In the case of Amoris laetitia, as Fr O'Collins admits, we find some theologians, bishops, and Cardinals, saying that it has changed Catholic practice and teaching fundamentally; others say that it has changed nothing. Fr O'Collins claims that the first group is applying 'what they rightly take to be the teaching of Pope Francis'. Would he not like to see this interpretation made clear to everyone? The fact that he doesn't want to see a clarification suggests that he isn't as confident as he claims that his favoured position is really the Holy Father's. The 45 signatories would seem to have more confidence in Pope Francis, and in the Holy Spirit which guides the Church.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Joseph Shaw

www.lmschairman.org/2016/08/appeal-to-cardinals-letter-in-tablet.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium...

By William Kilpatrick on August 10, 2016.

“#NotMyPope.” In the wake of Pope Francis’ equivocal response to the murder of a French priest by two Islamic jihadists, that’s the top trending hashtag in France and in Belgium.

Which raises a question: Is the Pope doing more harm than good by continuing to deny—in the face of a mountain of evidence—that Islam has anything to do with violence?

As I’ve noted several times in the past, the Church’s handling of the Islamic crisis may prove to be far more scandalous than its handling of the sex abuse crisis. The main scandal surrounding the revelation of priestly sex abuse was that it was covered up for a very long time by priests, pastors, and even bishops. By their silence, many Church officials were, in effect, denying that there was a serious problem. The effect on Catholic morale was profound. In those places which were most seriously affected by the scandals, such as Massachusetts and Ireland, church attendance dropped off dramatically. Disaffected Catholics didn’t necessarily lose their faith in God but they did lose faith in the Catholic Church.

The Church’s handling of the numerous cases of “Islamic abuse” has the potential for causing a greater scandal. The similarities are striking. Once again we have Church leaders who deny that there is any serious problem. This can be seen, for example, in Pope Francis’ repeated assurances that Islamic violence is the work of “a small group of fundamentalists” who, according to him, don’t have anything to do with Islam. And once again, we have a cover-up—this time of the aggressive nature of Islam. After every terrorist incident, the Pope or some Vatican spokesman leaps to the defense of Islam lest anyone get the idea that there is a link between Islam and violence.


This is sometimes done by denying that terrorist groups or individual jihadists are motivated by religious beliefs (despite voluminous evidence that they are). Sometimes it is done by drawing a moral equivalence between Islam and other religions. Recently, when asked why he did not speak of Islamic violence, the Pope replied that “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.” Of course, it’s a false comparison. When Catholics commit violence they do not do so in the name of their religion, but in violation of it. Most people realize that there is an enormous difference between the Catholic “who has murdered his girlfriend,” and the jihadist who slits a priest’s throat while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

And that’s the problem. More and more people can see that what the Pope and others in the hierarchy are saying about Islam and Islamic violence doesn’t comport with reality. If things continue in this direction, it will generate an enormous crisis of confidence in the Church. It is potentially a crisis of much great proportion than the sex abuse scandals. This time the victims of the cover-up will be counted not in the thousands, but in the tens of millions. And this time we will be talking not about damaged lives, but about dead bodies.

Millions of Christians in the Middle East and Africa are already dead as a result of jihad violence, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes (see here and here). It’s estimated that some two million were killed by Muslims in Sudan alone between 1983 and 1995. Many of the victims were completely unprepared because they had been assured by Church leaders that Islam is a peaceful religion just like Christianity or Judaism. In Europe, millions more are threatened by an influx of Muslim migrants—a migration that many Church authorities have encouraged. As Robert Spencer put it in a recent column, “The Pope is betraying the Christians of the Middle East and the world, and all the victims of jihad violence, by repeating palpable falsehoods about the motivating ideology of attacks upon them.” Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, said something similar last year when he criticized his brother bishops in France for ignoring the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians. He castigated them for being uninformed and in thrall to political correctness.

The Pope and others in the Church are not telling the truth about Islam. Some think they are doing so deliberately as part of a strategy to prevent further radicalization. Some (myself included) think they are doing so out of sheer naïveté. In either case, if they continue to defend Islam as a peaceful religion, it is bound to result in a crisis of trust and a crisis of faith.

If they are deliberately lying, it would be a serious sin, and people would be justified in their mistrust. It’s much more likely, however, that the Pope along with other Church authorities are simply naïve. For example, Pope Francis recently justified his view of Islam as a pacific faith by citing Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar:

I had a long conversation with the imam, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, and I know how they think. They [Muslims] seek peace, encounter.

For those who know what the Grand Imam says to Arabic-speaking audiences about killing apostates and the perfidy of the Jews, this is somewhat reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s words after the Munich agreement: “Herr Hitler … told me privately … that after this Sudeten German question is settled, that is the end of Germany’s territorial claims in Europe.”

Whether what Church leaders say about Islam is part of a deliberately misleading strategy or whether it is the result of naïveté, the result will be the same. Many people will lose trust in the Church, and many will leave it. A few high-profile Catholics already have left the Church because of the Church’s lack of resistance to Islam. Magdi Allam, the Italian journalist who converted from Islam and was baptized by Pope Benedict, has left the Church. And Ann Corcoran, the director of Refugee Resettlement Watch, has left in dismay over the USCCB’s permissive stance on Muslim resettlement in the U.S. Whether or not such a decision is justified from the perspective of faith, it remains a danger nonetheless.

No one trusts a habitual liar, but, for different reasons, no one trusts a person whose head is habitually in the clouds. People who are out of touch with reality—Chamberlain comes to mind—can be just as dangerous as outright deceivers.

In this regard it’s likely that the old charge about Catholic rigidity will be revived—only this time in a different context and with considerably more warrant. Instead of criticizing the Church for its “rigid” views on sex and marriage, the disaffected will begin to complain about the Church’s rigid belief that the Islamic faith is nothing more than a friendly fellow religion. One sign that an individual is afflicted with a rigid mentality is that he won’t change his mind in response to new information. That seems to be the case with Pope Francis. For someone who has been lauded for his flexibility, Francis seems to be unmovingly optimistic on the issue of Islam. Several years ago it was still possible to give him the benefit of the doubt. When he stated in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence,” it could be chalked up to poor advice or careless phrasing. But when the Pope continues in this vein despite the accumulating evidence that he is wrong, one can suspect that—at least in regard to Islam—his mind is closed. Just as it’s possible for some Christians to get trapped in a rigid pharisaical mentality, it’s possible for others to get trapped in dogmatic liberal assumptions.

There are many settled matters of faith for Catholics, but faith in the innocence of Islam is not one of them. It is strange that the Pope would take such a doctrinaire stance on a subject about which the Church has had relatively little to say—and especially when Pope Francis’ views on Islam are in direct contradiction to what some past pontiffs and at least one Doctor of the Church (Thomas Aquinas) had to say.

The Church’s current policy of minimizing the violent side of Islam while extolling the positive side amounts to a cover-up of vital information that Catholics deserve to know. As the gap widens between what Church officials say about Islam and what ordinary Catholics can see with their own eyes, the credibility of the Church may once again come into question as it did during the sex abuse scandals. The complaint then was that Church authorities didn’t do enough to protect children. The complaint that is building now is that all of us are at risk because the Church leadership has chosen to defend a partial and misleading narrative about Islam rather than tell the full truth.

In the wake of the sex abuse scandals, the Church instituted sweeping reforms to address the problem, with the result that the incidence of abuse within the Church is now much lower than in other comparable professions such as teaching and medicine. What is needed now is a thorough reappraisal of Church policy on Islam. Unless Church leaders develop a more realistic understanding of Islam, it is likely that “#NotMyPope” will soon be replaced with “#NotMyChurch.”

www.crisismagazine.com/2016/church-islam-next-cover-scandal#.V6ssJexuy1x...

Unconvincing, but worth reading.

mauroleonardi.it/2016/08/04/amoris-laetitia-rocco-buttiglione-risponde-a-robe...





I've read the response, thank you, but it concentrates on some extremely casuistic hairsplitting revolving around, in effect, when is sin not sin in the eyes of Jorge Bergoglio. But no argument can get around the simple fact that mortal sin is mortal sin, no ifs or buts, and adultery is one such sin defined by Jesus himself.

But the futile back-and-forth is because both Robert Gahl and Rodrigo Lopez Guerra, the two laymen who first responded directly to Buttiglione's defense of AL in the Vatican newspaper, went directly into the specifics about the 'when sin is not always sin' arguments of AL as presented by Buttiglione that they missed the single most objectionable paragraph in Buttiglione's OR essay, namely:

---

Some claim that for the pope to say such things contradicts the great battle waged by John Paul II against moral subjectivism. The battle lines were drawn in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.

Moral subjectivism means that the goodness or evil of human action depends on the intention of the agent. According to moral subjectivism, the only per se good is a good will. Therefore, in order to judge the action, we must look at the consequences desired by the person performing the act. According to this subjective view, any action can be good or bad depending on the circumstances that accompany the action.

Pope Francis, in perfect harmony with his great predecessor, tells us that some actions are bad in themselves (adultery, for example), regardless of the circumstances that accompany them and the intentions of the one performing them. [He most certainly never says that in AL, just as he has never in all the past three years referred to the sin RCDs are committing in a chronic continuing situation, namely, adultery, as being a sin!]

Saint John Paul II never doubted, however, that circumstances influence the moral evaluation of the one performing the action, rendering the agent more or less culpable of the objectively evil act he or she commits. There is no circumstance that can render an intrinsically evil act good, but the circumstances can increase or diminish the moral responsibility of the one who performs the act. [An outright distortion of what VS says.]

This is precisely what Pope Francis is talking about in Amoris Laetitia. Thus there is no “ethics of circumstance” in Amoris Laetitia, but rather the classic Thomistic balance that distinguishes between the judgment of the act and the judgment of the one performing the act, in which case attenuating or exonerating circumstances need to be considered. [This is a measure of how brazenly untruthful Buttiglione is in his defense of AL.]

---

For those who would like to read Buttiglione's OR article in English translation, here it is (thank God I did not have to spend any time translating him):
www.catholicnewworld.com/rbonal

When JMB is inexplicably inconsistent
He announced he would not be travelling in Italy during the Year of Mercy
but he went to Assisi this month and will go back there next month
while declining to attend Italy's National Eucharistic Congress in Genoa
[Since there has been no interruption in his foreign travels, why should
travel in Italy be selectively ruled out just because it is a Holy Year?]
Translated from

August 11, 2016

For this pope, Assisi is a special place, a very special place, even geographically. [Just to establish JMB's credentials on St. Francis and Assisi, has Magister checked how many times Jorge Bergoglio visited Assisi before he became Pope, or when was the last time he visited Assisi before March 13, 2013? I tried googling it, but got no references to 'Bergoglio in Assisi' nor to 'statements about St. Francis by Cardinal Bergoglio' before March 20, 2013. Perhaps with 'world enough and time', I may find something. If anyone has any information, please let us know on this Forum. I get the impression his 'St Francis-Assisi' consciousness only started on March 13, 2013.]

On December 10, 2015,at a news conference in Milan, as reported by the Vatican press bulletin, Cardinal Angelo Scola announced that he had 'received a communication from the Vatican Secretariat of State that because of intensifying commitments related to the Year of Mercy, the Holy Father would postpone all pastoral visits in Italy".

Everyone took note and accepted this plan, starting with Cardinal Scola who thus announced the cancellation of a planned and duly announced pastoral visit by the pope on May 7, 2016. [I would have thought he would fulfill this commitment if only because Milan has become the center of the largest and most activist Muslim community in Italy.]

But last August 4, the pope went to Assisi which, of course, is in Italy. And will be returning there on September 19. Two exceptions to his plan.

Breaking the news about this return visit to Assisi was the Imam of Perugia, Abdel Qaher Mohammed, who in an interview on TV2000 (channel of the Italian bishops' conference), said he learned this on speaking with the pope briefly in Assisi.

This return visit would coincide with the annual interfaith Prayer for Peace organized by the Sant'Egidio community (in a different city every year) o commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first such gathering in Assisi, promoted by John Paul II, in 1986.

But Sept. 19 also happens to be the day following the conclusion of the Italian Eucharistic Congress to take place in Genoa on Sept. 15-18, which the pope had earlier declined to attend because of his announced cancellation of all trips within Italy during the Year of Mercy.

And thus, he has set a precedent as the first post-conciliar pope not to attend an Italian Eucharistic Congress.

Because ever since popes in modern times - the pope is ex officio Primate of Italy - were once more able to travel outside Rome, they had always attended these quadrennial events. Before that, up to John XXIII in 1959, they sent appropriate messages.

For these Eucharistic Congresses, Paul VI went to Pisa in 1965, to Udine in 1972 and to Pescara in 1977, the year before he died. John Paul II went to Milan in 1983, to Reggio Calabria in 1988, to Siena in 1994 and to Bologna in 1997. Benedict XVI went to Bari in 2005 and to Ancona in 2011.

Eucharistic congresses are unique to Catholicism among the Christian confessions.

However, the trips this pope will be making in the next few weeks have 'vaster' horizons than the religion he nominally leads. [Go figure!] In Assisi, on Sept. 19, he will join leaders of other faiths, Christian or not. In Georgia and Azerbaijan (two former Soviet republics), he will be with Orthodox and Muslims. And in Lund, Sweden, on Oct. 31, he will be celebrating the fifth centenary of Martin Luther's schism known also as the Reformation.


Roberto De Mattei reprises Magister's critique in a commentary that widens the question to the pope's seeming obliviousness to his own flock even as he seeks to lasso in other faiths under his Big Tent of an incipient One-World-Religion. Sorry, Catholics!...


The faithful are asking the Pope
for clarity against the attacks of evil:
Where is he and where does he stand?
by Roberto de Mattei,
Translated by Francesca Romana for Rorate caeli from

August 14, 2016

During the month of August, Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican is emptied of its guests, but Pope Francis will spend the entire month in the Vatican, just as he has done the past three years.

Francis has announced he will forego a traditional papal appointment - the National Eucharistic Congress to take place this year in Genoa from the 15th to the 18th of August, but on the 19th of August the Pope will go to Assisi to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the encounter among religions, organized by the Community of St. Egidio.

The Vatican Press Office did not communicate this however, but the ‘Imam’ from Perugia, Abdel Moh’d in an interview to TV 2000 (The Italian Bishops Conference TV).

Pope Bergoglio will then be in Georgia and Azerbaijan from September 30 to October 2 with the Orthodox and the Muslims, and then in Lund, Sweden, on October 31st to commemorate the five hundred years of the Protestant Reformation.

Ecumenical initiatives are the compass to his pontificate, which seems to suggest the intent to build a common platform among religions, with the risk, noted by many, of emptying Catholicism and favouring the creation of a ‘super syncretistic religion’.

The lunch on August 11th with 21 Syrian refugees, all Muslims, who arrived in Italy following the papal trip to the Isle of Lesbos, is within the purview of Francis's ‘preferential option’ for non-Catholics. A strategy that demands the denial that there are any wars of religion at all [A willful inexplicable negation of more than abundant historical fact and, in general, of human nature]. And yet the Church is suffering persecution all over the world.

Monsignor Dominique Lebrun, Archbishop of Rouen, voiced his intention of starting the process of beatification which will lead to the recognition of Father Jacques Hamel’s martyrdom - killed ‘in hatred of the Faith’ like so many Christians of our times. Will a word of approval come from Rome?

Will a sign of support come for the three Spanish bishops taken to court for having criticised the law, just passed in Madrid, which promotes trans-sexuality? The Spanish Osservatore against LGBT-phobia, denounced the Bishop of Getafe, Monsignor Joaquin Maria López de Andújar, his auxiliary, José Rico Pavés and the diocesan titular of Alcalà, Monsignor Juan Antonio Reig Pla ‘for incitement to hatred and discrimination towards the homosexual community’.

But the worst is yet to come. A public black mass has been organized for August 15th by an American Satanist group at the Civic Center in Oklahoma City, with the permission of the local authorities. The city’s Archbishop, Monsignor Paul Coakley, has called on the faithful to ask the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel, Our Lady and all the Angels and Saints ‘that the Lord may take care of our community and protect us from evil and its many destructive and violent manifestations’.

Today, however, it is not only an American diocese suffering the attacks of evil, but the entire Church. The disoriented faithful turn to the Vicar of Christ, asking him to show his paternity not only towards those distant, but also to those closest to him, more than ever in need of clarity and encouragement in this tempestuous, historical period.

The myth – and reality –
of the 'Andalusian Paradise'
by Jude P. Dougherty

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2016

Dario Fernandez Morera, a professional historian of sterling credentials (including a degree from Stanford University and a Harvard PhD) has taken on a subject of more than academic interest in a book with the arresting title The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.

We often hear about that paradise in current controversies over militant Islam, particularly several themes identified in the opening pages of this book:

“On the intellectual level Islam played an important role in the development of Western European civilization.”
and
“In the Middle Ages there emerged two Europes: one, Muslim Europe secure in its defenses, religiously tolerant, and maturing in cultural and scientific sophistication. The other, Christian Europe, an arena of unceasing warfare in which superstition passed for religion and the flame of knowledge sputtered weakly.”
and
“Muslim rulers of the past were far more tolerant of peoples of other faiths than were Christian ones.”

James Reston, a prominent American journalist, long associated with The New York Times, is quoted as saying, “In the arts and agriculture, learning and tolerance, Al-Andalusia was a beacon of enlightenment to the rest of Europe. . . .among its finest achievements was its tolerance.”

Reston, no Islamic scholar, was simply reflecting the fashionable mythology of the day, perhaps even the editorial policy of his paper.

Fernandez employs these and other such assertions to introduce what he takes to be the conventional view of Islam in mainstream academic and popular writings. He responds to the conventional view with the novel approach of examining what actually was the case.

He finds that in the spirit of Voltaire and Edward Gibbon, university presses tend to perpetuate the myth of a benevolent Islam – against all evidence to the contrary.

Fernandez’s alternative chronicle begins in the second half of the seventh century when the Caliph Abu Bakr’s armies from Arabia and the Middle East began their sweep across North Africa coastal areas held by the Christian Greek Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

North Africa had been largely Christian since the early fourth century. This was the land of Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Augustine of Hippo. Some historians present this conquest as a migration of peoples.

To the contrary, Fernandez shows beyond doubt that Islam emerged from Arabia as a conquering movement with world domination as its ultimate aim. And he has the texts to prove it.

Led by Musa Ibn Nusayr, Governor of North Africa, Berber armies crossed the straights of Gibraltar in 711. The subsequent Islamic conquest of Spain took only ten years. Three hundred and fifty years of Gothic rule in the Iberian Peninsula were thus brought to an end. The Arabs were to stay until the end of the fifteenth century.

Musa ibn Nusayr gave the defeated Hispano-Visigoths three options: 1) convert to Islam, 2) submit as dhimmis to Islamic supremacy and pay tribute or 3) be killed (in the case of men) or enslaved (in the case of women). The invaders burned cities, wasted the land, destroyed churches and sacked diocesan libraries and treasuries for booty.

Fernandez draws upon multiple primary sources, both Muslim and Christian that chronicle the brutality of the Islamic conquest. Jewish communities, he finds, typically sided with the invaders and were given the role of guardians over major cities after they had fallen to Muslim armies. A case in point, Toledo, the Visigoth capital, offered no resistance. Musa nevertheless executed seven 700 notables and then left the Jews in charge as he moved on to Guadalajara.

Fernandez is particularly incensed by Houghton Mifflin’s Across the Centuries, a popular textbook that teaches children that jihad is an “inner struggle” that urges the faithful “to do one’s best to resist temptation and overcome evil.”

He shows this to be the purest nonsense. The legal texts of the Maliki School of Islamic Law do not speak of “spiritual inner struggle.” Rather they speak of a theologically mandated war against infidels, a “sacred combat” or Holy War.

Ibn Khaldun, the respected fourteenth-century historian and philosopher quoted by Pope Benedict XVI in his famous Regensburg Address, has acknowledged the indivisibility of the religious and secular motivation of those who exercise power at the highest level within Islam.

Fernandez is careful to say that these truths of history are not meant to pass judgment on today’s Muslims, Jews, or Christians. He does not speak of a “clash of cultures,” although one would think that a clash is amply demonstrated by the brutality of the Islamic conquest. It’s enough for him to set the historical record straight.

His cautious approach may be governed in part by the recognition that, after hundreds of years of enforced coexistence, it can be difficult to determine what came from what. And the difficulty stems in part, because the Islamic conqueror’s rule often allowed communities of Jews or Christians to live within their own conclaves under their own laws, although as dhimmis, humiliated and subject to special taxation.

Fernandez devotes separate chapters to subjects such as: “The Truth about the Jewish ‘Golden Age’” in which he debunks the claim that Islam granted Spain’s Jewish communities, composed largely of Sephardic Jews, a substantial degree of liberty and tolerance; and “Women in Islamic Spain,” that does not make for pleasant reading. The subtitle of that chapter, “Female Circumcision, Stoning, Veils and Sexual Slavery,” says it all.

Fernandez has sought, in his own words, to examine “synchronically [the successive cultures that constitute al-Andalusia] by focusing on literary, historical, legal, religious, biographical and archeological data in order to show humanity both suffering and inflicting suffering.”

He’s done that convincingly, and with an admirable regard for truth.

I wish the reviewer had said something more aboutwhat the book says on the supposed 'Golden Age' of Islamic thought attributed to Muslim culture as it developed in Al-Andalus. Since first studying World History as a freshman in high school, I had taken it as historical fact that great Muslim thinkers of the time, from the 9th to the 12th centuries, had been responsible for rescuing Greek thought from antiquity in what had always been described as Europe's Dark Ages, almost as if they had performed a civilization-saving feat for humanity similar to what St. Benedict and his monks had performed in the 6th century. If that is one of the myths this book shatters, then it deserves a separate treatment of its own.

As an example of correct liturgy celebrated according to Tradition, this Mass in Poland illustrates yet another 'divide' between
the Church in Poland and the current Vicar of Christ who has no use - and possibly even some contempt - for any liturgy that goes
beyond the bare bones of the Protestant-inspired Novus Ordo...

This is not to advocate for the use of the magna cappa, for instance, at every Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form, but it is
important - in order to keep the Tradition gloriously alive - to show on the right occasion how it used to be done and how it should
still be done whenever possible.

Ars Celebrandi 2016 in Poland
ends with magnificent Mass

August 15, 2016

From the 'Ars celebrandi' press release:

“What is most amazing for me — but amazing in a joyful way — is the fact that a great interest for this form of celebrating liturgy -
the form which is by no means easy -- is being expressed by so many young people”, Bishop Wiesław Mering of Włocławek diocese, said.



The solemn Mass coram episcopo [a Mass celebrated in the presence of the Bishop] in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, presided over by Bishop Mering in the main basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady in Licheń, Poland, was the climax of the Third “Ars Celebrandi” Liturgical Workshops.

“We hear predictions speaking that Christianity is dying, that its power is running out, from many sides. Meanwhile an interest of young people in this demanding ut beautiful form of liturgy raises a great hope”, .

Bishop Mering emphasized the fact that there are attempts to deprive young people of their tradition, “to tear out some part of their identity from their hearts”. As a consequence they are not able to find their place in life.

“In my opinion the proof of this is the fact that so many young people suffer all kinds of depression, or they lose a sense of life,” the bishop said...

He added that as a bishop he had never participated before in a liturgy that had been so carefully prepared and so full of meaningful signs; and he praised organizers and participants of the “Ars Celebrandi” Liturgical Workshops for their respect for the Most Holy Sacrament, manifested in their careful and accurate celebration of the liturgy.

The “Ars Celebrandi” Liturgical Workshops in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń took place for the third time. This year’s edition lasted from August 4 to 11th. 170 participants (priests, religious people and laity) from Poland and abroad learned celebrating Masses in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite or in the Dominican Rite; or serving as altar boys or liturgical singers (Gregorian chant; old polyphony; traditional Polish folk devotional chants). Moreover, they sang the Divine Office in Gregorian chant.

The event was organized by the Una Voce Polonia Association. His Excellency Bishop Wiesław Mering of Włocławek diocese and the Organizing Committee of the World Youth Days Cracow 2016 had honorary patronage over it.



Additional photos from the Missa coram episcopo are available at the Ars Celebrandi website.

SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

From left, Dormition/Assumption of Mary: by Della Gatta, 1475; by El Greco, 1577; in a Coptic icon; in a Byzantine icon; by Titian, 1516, and by Rubens, 1577.
The celebration of the Assumption of Mary (Dormition, as the Orthodox prefer to call it) started in the sixth century and was widespread throughout the Eastern, Western,
Coptic and Oriental churches by the late seventh century. Declaration of the Assumption as dogma was requested by the Fathers of the First Vatican Council in the mid-20th
century. In 1950, after consulting all the bishops of the world - as Pius IX did when he declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1850 - Pius XII declared
the dogma of the Assumption:


Contrary to what some of the more vociferous 'traditionalist' bloggers appear to believe about Pius XII, it turns out that he was rather pro-active
in 'amending' some specific aspects of Tradition, as he did with his thorough changes in the Holy Week liturgical practices, and now from Fr. H's
piece today, about having 'diluted' millennial Catholic tradition about the Assumption, paradoxically, in his formal proclamation of the dogma
of the Assumption.

If there was no worldwide hue and cry over these audacious innovations at the time, consider that they came long before Church affairs and what
the pope does had become the stuff of 'news and current events, 24/7', and the lag time between a papal action and its actual trickledown to
the level of the individual parishioner, or even to his parish priest, was months, if not years.

This was pre-Vatican-II. Yet it now seems more apparent why, after the Bible, Pius XII was the most frequently cited authority in the Vatican-II documents.
And we have since been informed that Pius XII himself had been thinking of convoking an ecumenical council.

I can just imagine how the ferociously pro-P12/anti-B16 bloggers today would have sought to pulverize B16 if he had attempted a fraction of the changes
made by Pius XII - as they have already anathematized him and scoffed at him for upholding Vatican-II in the hermeneutic of continuity. ('No such thing',
they claim, even if eminences like Cardinals Burke and Caffarra now admonish us that the way to interpret anything ambiguous in a papal statement is
to interpret it in continuity with what went before (no matter how clear the ultimate end is of the deliberately ambiguous statements in AL).

None of this detracts from Pius XII's personal holiness, of course, and I continue to think he ought to have been beatified and canonized long before now....


Pius XII and the Assumption

Aufust 15, 2016

The notion that the Definition of 1950 regarding the Assumption of our Lady somehow constituted the 'imposition' of a 'new' dogma is quite the opposite of the truth. Put crudely, rather than being Doctrinal Augmentationism, that Definition constituted Doctrinal Reductionism.

The first millennium texts common to Rome and Canterbury expressed a belief common also to the East: that Mary 'underwent temporal death'; that nevertheless she 'could not be held down by the bonds of death' and that the precise reason why God 'translated her from this age' was that 'she might faithfully intercede for our sins'.

This is the Ancient Common Tradition of East and West. It is, in fact, expressed clearly in much of the liturgical and patristic evidence which Pius XII cited as evidence for the dogma in Munificentissimus Deus.

One suspects that this is because the Pope would have been much shorter of evidence if he had omitted this material. But it is left out of the definition. Which means that it has de facto disappeared from the consciousness of Latin Christendom.

And in the subsequent liturgical changes, our Lady's death and resurrection were censored out of the Divine Office.

Yet the old beliefs were good enough for the pages of the Altar Missal of the Anglo-Saxon Archbishops of Canterbury (the 'Leofric Missal'), the faith of S Odo, S Dunstan, S Aelfheah, S Aethelnoth, S Eadsige and very probably of so many other archbishops of Canterbury stretching beyond Plegmund to S Augustine.

They were good enough for the Breviary lections during the Octave. Blessed John Henry Newman's justly celebrated sermon on the Assumption makes the same point. She died and was resurrected. Authoritative, surely?

Yet this is not what Pius XII defined. His 1950 definition, as the ARCIC document on Mary accurately reminds us, does not 'use about her the language of death and resurrection, but celebrates the action of God in her.' [A very strange 'but'!]

The Apostolic Constitution defining the Dogma of the Assumption may be found here in English:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus.html

In other words, Pius XII took a machete and slashed ruthlessly at the Common Ancient Tradition about our Lady's end, not simply by ignoring the apocryphal stories about how the Apostles gathered and what they found in the tomb and how S Thomas arrived late and all the rest of it; but also by pruning away even the bare structural bones of what Christians Eastern and Western had harmoniously thought they knew: that she died and was resurrected.

The 1950 decree was not the imposition of some new dogma but the elimination of 99% of what the Common Ancient Tradition had for centuries comfortably shared.

Those whose instinctive disposition is to avoid speculation about our Lady's End ought to applaud Pius XII and the radical austerity, the innovative agnosticism, of his definition. He went almost all the way to meet them.


Speaking of tradition, JMB/PF appears to have completely abandoned the practice of the Popes since Paul VI to celebrate the Mass of the Assumption at the parish church of Santo Tomas Villanova in Castel Gandolfo. He followed it in 2013, the first year of his pontificate, on what was also his second and last visit to Castel Gandolfo as pope (the first had been to meet with Benedict XVI on March 21, 2013), but not again.

One gets the impression JMB does not wish to the associated with the papal estate in Castel Gandolfo, as if it was somehow a mark of shame (i.e., in his mind, popes have no business having a 'summer residence' at all - how scandalous to even think of residing elsewhere than the Vatican during the summer!) But, c'mon, one day during the year to celebrate the Mass of the Assumption in Castel Gandolfo cannot possibly be scandalous!

One shouldn't care about the relatively minor idiosyncracies of this pope, but think of what his absence over the past three years must have done to the economy of Castel Gandolfo which thrived on the summer months when a pope was in residence and the faithful came to see and hear him on Wednesdays and Sundays... Not to mention the slight to the people of Castel Gandolfo who had become habituated since the time of Pius XII to a pope in residence among them in the summer months.


On a Marian feast, perhaps it is worth the effort to check out this account of Marian apparitions in Argentina since 1983 to a lady who also claims that Jesus has appeared to her.
http://www.english.santisimavirgen.com.ar/historia_de_maria_del_rosario_eng.htm
It has always amazed me that Catholic journalists do not flock to check out stories like this (though on Medjugorje, many have tried to do so but are far from unanimous in accepting the reported apparitions). Moreover, the accounts tend to end up like this one, which is not exactly systematic nor comprehensive, and which raises more questions than it answers.


8/16/16
P.S. Fr H has further thoughts today about the Assumption:

Assumption collects

August 16, 2016

---

Forgive, O Lord the offenses of thy servants, that we who by our own deeds are not able to be pleasing unto thee, may by the intercession of the Mother of thy Son our Lord [God] be saved.

---

Thus, a literal translation of the Collect which, until Pius XII, was said on Assumption day. After the 1950 proclamation of the dogma of our Lady's Corporal Assumption, it was replaced by a collect more explicitly asserting the corporality of her Assumption.

Incidentally, the word [God] appears in earlier texts and I think it ought to be restored because in this age of weakened faith we ought to lose no opportunity of hammering home the Godness, which is not a misprint for goodness, complete and unambiguous, of the rabbi from Nazareth.

This old collect, by the way, survives as one among the options in the new rites for the Common of our Lady, and for use on Saturdays, and for August 5, now seen as the commemoration of the Ephesian definition of Theotokos.

Another reason why this Collect might give pause for thought is its apparent assertion that we are 'saved' by the intercession of our Lady. A trifle (as some Anglicans might put it) 'extreme'?

I do think this needs unpacking. And so I would make two points.
(1) Earlier tradition asks the question "why was she assumed?", and gives an answer quite different from that offered by some modern theologians (i.e. that being immaculate she was not subject to death). She was assumed that she might intercede for us. You will find this in a sermon of the great hesychast Father S Gregory Palamas.

This Eastern idea appears also in Western texts such as the Gregorian Sacramentary: "Great, O Lord, in the sight of thy loving kindness is the prayer of the Mother of God, whom thou didst translate from this present age for this reason, that (idcirco ut) she might effectually intercede for our sins before thee".

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"Let the help, O Lord, of the prayer of the Mother of God come to the aid of thy people; although we know that after the condition of the flesh she left this world, may we know that she prays for us before thee in heavenly glory".

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And, (2), I feel we should give a broad sense to the word intercession. Yes, it means that she prays for us. But it also means that Mary came between (cessit inter) God and Man when by her fiat she gave birth to the Divine Redeemer.

And, in Mary, function and ontology merge; she is eternally what she was in the mystery of the Incarnation.What she did at Nazareth and Bethlehem is what in the Father's eternal creative utterance she is. And so these two senses of 'intercession' are really one.

That is, surely, the root of the dogma of our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces.

8/17/16
Fr. H has another Assumption post-script:

Why was she assumed?
A patrimonial answer

August 17, 2016

Christians have sometimes based a belief in our Lady's Assumption upon her perpetual virginity; or her freedom from actual sin; or her freedom from original sin; or the inseparable physical bond between her and the Son who shared her flesh and blood, her DNA; or the unbreakable bond of love that must exist between Mother and Son. All this I agree with.

But as I observed yesterday, the reason most consonant with the liturgical traditions of East and West is that she was assumed so that she could be our Intercessor. Sometimes it is considered that the concept of our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces is somehow "extreme" and is a horribly divisive extravagance that any sensible ecumenist (oxymoron?) dreads being defined ex cathedra by some maximalising pope. I disagree.

I will make the point by giving a translation of a Secret which was often used in many parts of Europe during this season - including England.

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O Lord, may the prayer of the Mother of God commend our offerings before thy merciful kindness; for thou didst translate her from this present Age for this purpose, that (idcirco ... ut) she might confidently (fiducialiter) intercede before thee for our sins.

---

A considerable Russian theologian, Vladimir Lossky, explained that

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"freed from the limitations of time, Mary can be the cause of that which is before her; can preside over that which comes after her. She obtains eternal benefits. It is through her that men and angels receive grace.

No gift is received in the Church without the assistance of the Mother of God, who is herself the first-fruits of the glorified Church. Thus, having attained to the limits of becoming, she necessarily watches over the destinies of the Church and of the universe".

---

Our Lady was assumed that she might be the treasury of God's grace, the Mediatrix of All Graces, the mother whose hands stretch out to bestow. In Newman's majestic words, written while he was still an Anglican:

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There was a wonder in heaven; a throne was seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory; a title archetypical; a crown bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes as pure as the heavens; and a sceptre over all ... The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

---

A well-known Roman Catholic (traditionalist) scholar once said to me that he felt Newman wrote better when he was an Anglican than when he was a Roman Catholic. This passage could stand as evidence. When Newman was beatified, the author of his Anglican writings was beatified too. Nobody is more Patrimonial than Newman.

B16's modest octogenarian belly was the one criticism I had of his physical appearance, but
JMB looks like he has a barrel belly here (not exactly the right image for an apostle of asceticism).

Note from the present underground -
which today is articulated orthodox Catholicism
by James V. Schall, S.J.

AUGUST 16, 2016

The last lines of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground are these:

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We shall not know. . .what to cling to, what to love, what to hate. We are oppressed at being men – men with a real individual body and blood. We think it a disgrace and contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten not by living fathers. . . .Soon we shall contrive to be born from an idea.

---

These words were written in St. Petersburg in 1864, the last full year of the American Civil War.

In his 1848 Communist Manifesto, Marx told us to “rise up.” We had nothing to lose but our chains. This call, however, showed considerably less insight into the future than Dostoyevsky’s. He told us that we would lose our fathers, and with their loss, our very being. Nietzsche, near the end of the 19th Century, proclaimed that God was already dead in our souls. We just had not noticed.

But the notion that we “shall contrive to be born from an idea” is a more haunting consideration. Without Fatherhood in God to ground the reality that is, we “free” ourselves to become anything but what we ought to be. The real sociological record of our time is a step-by-step, logical declination from the good that is already present in the cosmos and in man. We remain free to know this good, but only if we will.

Chesterton, early in the 20th Century, told us that the most horrible of human ideas was that men could be born of men, not women. Men cannot beget of men – or women of women, no matter how much they “want” to. Positive “laws” establishing “marriage” in such cases contradict reality. They place all involved at odds with the order of being.

Dostoyevsky saw it clearly. We want a “generalized man,” not the particular one born of woman having been begotten by an identifiable father, with a real body and real blood. Our anonymous sperm and ova banks, our abortion factories, our random begetting, cloning, our divorces, all testify to the truth of Dostoyevsky’s warning. We stand to be born of a laboratory or political “idea,” not from real fathers and mothers.

We read the passage from John that tells us that the Word was made “flesh” – body and blood – to dwell amongst us. The Word did not appear as an “idea”; nor have any of us in our beginnings. Several famous passages in the Old Testament speak of God knowing us before we were in our mother’s womb.

In this sense, we were indeed in our ultimate origins “an idea” in God’s creative mind. But the what-it-is-to-be-a-man is not ours to formulate or to bring forth. God’s mind is not filled with abstract “ideas,” but images of His own being.

What is the “underground” today? What is it that cannot be admitted, what is driven systematically from our public lives? The “underground” today is that explication of being and living that is specifically rejected by the politicized culture.

The curious thing about the official deviation from the good is that it does not tolerate opposition. It cannot. Like Islam, it affirms that any view of reality that is not fully controlled by the public order is illegitimate. Elimination of freedom of religion and expression through charges of “hate” language and other devices is no accident. It is the compliment that error always pays to truth.

What we must recognize is that articulated, orthodox Catholicism is today the real underground. It is what the culture recognizes that it must systematically eliminate.

But this rejection follows a clear and logical path. It presupposes the Gnostic idea that laws and customs of the people are but free constructs, with no basis in reality. Our laws, however, really comprise step-by-step, logical deviations from the good that is in being, especially in human being. This good is found already present in reality.

The truth of human being is not created by man but discovered as already in him. He is not asked to become something else, but to become himself. He must choose to be what he is. He is free to be what he is created to be. He is also free to reject what he is. Such is his doom or glory.

The “modern project,” as Leo Strauss called it, proposes that man becomes an object of his own science. He reconfigures himself in every way. But in the end, when he completes the declination from his own good, he will finally be in a position to see, if he will, that he was better made than he thought.

We can only whisper these truths in the present underground. The order of evil mocks the order of good. It does not change its truth.


It is noteworthy that Fr. Schall uses the word evil in this essay as Roberto De Mattei did in his article two days ago about the seeming 'absence' of the pope in a world where evil in many forms is probably more manifest today, or at least as pervasive as it was, than in the heyday of Nazism and then, of Communism in its turn.

This pope is obviously very much 'present' and continually heard from when it comes to his major secular concerns (climate change, poverty, hunger, war), but if not absent, then at the very least, willfully oblivious to present realities that he chooses not to acknowledge as fact, such as Islamist extremism manifesting itself as worldwide terrorism, or the very real concerns of orthodox Catholics whom the church of Bergoglio, acting in the guise of the one true Church of Christ, has driven underground, to use Fr. Schall's term.

Yet this Catholic underground is not so resourceless today as it might otherwise have been before the Internet became worldwide reality, because for now, at least - despite the increasingly shameless 'controls' sought to be imposed by the Internet powers on sites and users who do not measure up to their politically correct standards - we do have the Internet which is far more convenient than having to resort to Soviet-style samizdat to spread the word.

I suppose even if the Internet powers manage to muzzle non-PC users on the social media sites, one does not really need a social media site to make one's views known and propagated on the web. Hey, if ISIS and all their unholy allies can manage to use the web as they wish, without recourse to social media, we should all be able to.

A few days earlier, Fr. Schall posted his commentary on the pope's most recent 'nightmare at 30,000 feet' news conference. In Benedict XVI's pontificate, Fr. Schall had the most sustained, regular, insightful and always-fruitful analyses-commentaries bar none on the Pope's major texts, documents and homilies

In this pontificate, he has no comparable material to work with, but he has nonetheless been 'compelled', one might say, to react to the seemingly inexhaustible Bergoglian logorrhea which inevitably devolves into many statements without sane rhyme or reason, except whatever it may have in JMB's unique mind.



Some thoughts on the Pope's
remarks returning from Krakow
by James Schall, SJ

August 13, 2016

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“It’s like a fruit salad, there’s a little bit of everything; there are violent people in these religions. One thing is true; I believe that in almost all religions there always a small fundamentalist group.”
— Pope Francis, Interview
Return from Krakow, July 31, 2016
(L’Osservatore Romano, English, August 5, 2016)

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I.
My print copy of the Holy Father’s comments on his return from World Youth Day in Poland arrived on August 8, the Feast of St. Dominic.

On the front page of this issue is a headline that reads “A Jesuit among the Friars”. It recounts that on August 4, Pope Francis met with the General Chapter of the Dominican Fathers, then in the afternoon flew to Assisi to meet with Franciscans. The print that goes with the account is from Benozzo Gozzoli (1452), a famous painting of the meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic.

No Jesuit was present yet at this initial meeting between the two friars. It was not only because Jesuits are not friars. It is just that they had not yet been dreamed up by St. Ignatius at the time.

It is always a delight [for Jesuits] to be with Dominicans and Franciscans. At their too infrequent meetings, all three go home thanking God for his particular vocation. This is what the “common good” is about.

The return flight interview from Poland followed the usual pattern that popes have now accustomed us to in such occasions. The Pope invites questions and reflects leisurely on the experience of the visit.

The Pope, on this return trip, first thanked Fr. Fedrico Lombardi for his long service as Press Secretary. This would be his last official trip. The Pope also thanked a certain Mauro who was likewise retiring. He had worked for 37 years as handler of the baggage on these trips—no doubt a major logistics problem. The Pope even promised then a cake later on.

The first question the Pope was asked came from a Polish reporter. It was one of those “How did you like the Poles?” questions. Francis liked them just fine. He recalled that his father worked with some Polish people in Argentina. “They were good people.”

The next question, also from a Pole, wanted to know how the Pope prepared for a visit with young people. “I enjoy talking with young people.” They do sometimes say “ridiculous things” but so do old folks like himself and those not so old.

“We need to listen to them, to speak with them, because we learn from them and they need to learn from us.” Evidently, history is made this way. Whether an older generation has anything in particular to pass down that the young do not already know — the old issue of wisdom - was a question not broached. Francis does not seem to be bothered by the concern of Plato about teachers and fathers who have nothing to teach their sons so they end up imitating them.

An Italian reporter wanted to know what the Pope thought of ominous events in Turkey. “We would like to ask you: why have you not intervened yourself, why haven’t you spoken about this? Are you afraid that there would be repressions on the Christian minorities in Turkey?”

Pope Francis handled this delicate question gingerly. The Pope said that he did speak frankly of Turkey on occasion. He was not sure what was going on in Turkey at present. He was studying the matter. “It is true that we always want to avoid harm to the Catholic communities…but not at the price of truth. Prudence is an issue.

“When I have had something to say about Turkey, I have said it.” In Armenia, the Pope did talk of the Turkish slaughter of over a million Armenians around the end of the Great War [which was a century ago].

II.
An American journalist asked about accusations against Cardinal Pell in Australia. Francis replied that these reports have been “confusing”. The “Who am I to judge?” theme comes out this way: “We cannot judge until the justice system passes judgement.”

Francis did not want to pass judgement on the Cardinal Pell case “prematurely”. Doubt exists. The law “favors the accused”. We have to wait for the justice system to do its job and not pass judgement in the media, because this is not helpful.” Francis does not like “justice by gossip”.

Francis’s final comment on the topic is this: “See what the justice system decides. Once it has spoken, then I will speak.” It is a relief to know that the Holy Father will make some judgements. In this interview, at least, there is no indication one way or another about whether the Pope thinks good Cardinal Pell is innocent or not. This is itself, I presume, a judgement of prudence.

Evidently, we will find out what the Pope really thinks only after the court decision in Australia. If the court judges him guilty, the Pope surely will have to make a judgement about whether it was right or not.

[The pope's statements about Cardinal Pell here were to me the most troubling of what he said after the nonsense about Islam and terrorism. And I am surprised few commentators made much of it. Hedging himself with an excess of prudence was so different from how he promptly exculpated Mons. Ricci despite the official evidence of his flagrantly public homosexual life before he was recalled from his diplomatic posting in Latin America, and a similar Bergoglian exculpation without Vatican investigation of charges against the Chilean bishop Mons. Barros who has been accused not just of complicity but even of possible participation in the sexual crimes of his mentor Fr. Karadima.

Considering that he chose Cardinal Pell to be in his Crown Council of Cardinals and then named him to head the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, could he not at least have said, "Cardinal Pell is an upright man, and the allegations brought against him have been investigated more than once in the past several years. I trust the new investigation will not have a different result". As it is, JMB's remarks were the equivalent of throwing Cardinal Pell under the bus and then walking away to let him fend for himself.]

A Latin American journalist asked the Pope first about his fall at a liturgical service and about Venezuela. Of the fall, he said he was lucky and landed all right and is doing fine. [But there is that little white lie he told about falling because he was looking at the image of the Madonna, when the pictures clearly show he was facing the side of the altar when he fell.]

Venezuela, however, is a delicate question. Many think that the Pope has been too cozy with dictators like the Castro brothers, the man in Bolivia, and other similar rather shady political figures. His relation to Peron and other Argentine rulers is often discussed, even if he has a good record against some of them.

Pope Francis had received a request for an audience from Venezuelan President Maduro, but it had to be cancelled due to the President’s earache. Some talk of the Vatican mediating the situation in Venezuela was heard.

The Pope is rather reticent here: “There is presently some thought…but I am not sure, and I cannot confirm this. I am not sure whether someone in the group of mediators…or perhaps also from the governments— but I am not sure — wants representatives from the Holy See.”

III.
The final major question that received much world-wide attention was what the Pope said about Islam. In the Interview on the trip to Krakow, the Pope had made these widely cited remarks, which are not exactly out of von Clausewitz, Machiavelli, or even Aquinas “on war”:

“When I speak of war, I speak of real war, not of a war of religions.” In the Pope’s view, “war is for interests” or “for money”, the “resources of nature”, or “for the domination of peoples”. Violence and conflict cannot be framed as religious issues. “All Religions want peace, while ‘others want war.’” (L’Osservatore Romano, English, July 29, 2016).

Evidently, war can be caused by anything but religion. This unusual view seems to be an a priori position, not one based on experience. If it is a war, it cannot be caused by religion. Therefore, something else is the cause. Thus, one might conclude that the famous “Wars of Religion” (1562-98) were improperly named. The spread of Islam by the sword was not caused by religion.

While the Pope was in Krakow, the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel at Mass took place in France. The Pope is asked by a reporter why he refuses to use the word “Islamic” but only the abstract “terrorists” when speaking of these frequent incidents of killings in Europe.

Francis explains that he does not speak of “Islamic violence” because he reads in the newspaper in Italy that a man, a “baptized Catholic”, has killed his girlfriend. The reasoning goes like this: “If I spoke about Islamic violence, I would have to speak of Catholic violence.” In the Pope’s mind, there is equivalence between cutting the throat of a Priest at Mass and the killing of a girlfriend.

“Not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent.” It is all “like a fruit salad”. There are violent people in all religions. Of course, some fundamental difference exists between the Muslim who kills others because he is carrying out his religion’s commands and the “baptized Catholic” who kills his girlfriend in spite of what the Commandment teaches.

What then is the problem? “I believe that, in almost all religions, there is always a small fundamentalist group.” Fundamentalisms somehow gets “to the point of killing.”

At this point, the Pope seems distracted. “One can kill with the tongue.” He cites St. James. We can “kill” not just with a “knife.” This is an analogy wherein the verb “to kill” does not mean exactly the same thing. Evidently, we now have also equivalence between killing with a knife and killing with the tongue. I am not sure just what this does to the Fifth Commandment.

“Bless me Father for I have killed a man with my tongue,” would be a bit misleading. It is an unusual way to speak of “killing” in this context. Slander and calumny have long been considered serious sins in their own right. They are not really murders, however much damage to reputations they may do.

The Pope then returned to the spirit of the remarks that he made on the way to Krakow. “ I believe that it is not right to identify Islam with violence. It is not right and it is not true.”

If we recall the Regensburg Address, it was precisely this accusation that the Emperor made. Islam was a source of violence as its Holy Book specifically taught.

Pope Francis recalls a long talk with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. He told the Pope that Islam was “looking for peace, for encounter”. Of course, in the normal understanding of a Muslim, peace arrives only after everyone else is legally and morally submissive to Allah. Before that event, everyone outside of Islam is in a state of war against it. In some African nations, the Pope tells us that Muslims and Christians get along. But on a world scale, this is unusual.

The problem is, Pope Francis tells us, the “little fundamentalist groups”. But it is not just them. It is like killing with the tongue. Young Europeans are left without ideals or jobs. As a result they turn to drugs and alcohol, and, as a result, they “enlist in these fundamentalist groups.”

Finally, Francis does admit that ISIS (i.e., the “so-called” ISIS, a small group) “acknowledges itself to be violent.” They do slit the throats of Egyptians (whom he does not identify as as Coptic Christians) on the Libyan coast.” What about it? Not to worry. “This is a little fundamentalist group called ISIS.” This small group does seem to have a world-wide reach.

One might say, I suppose, that the Twelve Apostles, the College of Cardinals, the San Francisco 49ers, or the House of Commons can be described as a “little fundamentalist group”.

In any case, so says the pope: “You cannot say — I believe it is false and unjust — that Islam is terrorist. Terrorism is everywhere. Think of tribal terrorism in some African countries.” The Sudan or Nigeria are not mentioned.

[Again, Bergoglio's fallacious comparisons. Tribal 'terrorism' - in the name of generational inter-tribal enmities - cannot and should not be equated with the global terrorism perpetrated by Islamist extremists going under whatever name (ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, what-have you)against all non-Muslims as targets, never mind if in the process, some of their fellow Muslims are also killed. All in the name of establishing the religious and therefore social and political domination of Islam.]

The first [Bergoglian] principle seems to be that religion can have nothing to do with terrorism unless taken up by a few fanatics recruited because of drugs, alcohol, and lack of jobs.

The explanation of war, fundamentalism, and terrorism continues: “Terrorism - I do not know if I should say it because it is a bit risky — increases whenever there is no other option, when the global economy is centered on the god of money and not on the human person.” So in the end, it all comes back to economics. Religion has nothing to do with it. It does not evidently get at the heart of things.

“This is already a first form of terrorism. You drive out the marvel of creation, man and woman, and you put money in their place. This is the basic act of terrorism against all humanity. We should think about it.” Whew!

With such reflections, Pope Francis does give us “something to think about.” It is, to be sure, “risky” business. At least some of the things worth thinking about are these:
- Is there no recorded history of terrorism caused by Islamic expansion since the sixth century? (See Mike Konrad, The American Thinker, May 31, 2014).
- Is nothing said in the Qur’an suggesting that violence is approved by Allah?
- Is a crime of passion that violates a fundamental teaching of one’s religion equivalent to an act of violence in the name of one’s religion?
- Is it true that “fundamentalism”, whatever it is, is the cause of the danger?
- Are all wars solely caused by “interests”, “money”, “desire for natural resource”, and “expansion”?
- Is terrorism really caused by the world economy? Are the actual terrorists poor? Do they say they are motivated by economic motives?

It is, indeed, well to think of these things. Indeed, it is probably more “risky” not to think about them.


WHEW, indeed! Besides preaching that, because God is infinitely merciful, sin is not always sin, persons living in chronic sin may actually be in a 'state of grace', not to worry because everyone will go to heaven (even our pets) and there is no hell, we also have our beloved pope exonerating Islamists of their grave crimes against humanity!

It's stretching it, but if I were to pursue my analogy of Bergoglio and Neville Chamberlain - who famously proclaimed "Peace in our time" because Hitler had assured him (just a few months before Germany invaded Poland and began the Second World War) that Germany had no military intentions at all (even if in his case, JMB's interlocutor was 'merely' the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar) - then JMB would have ended up justifying the Holocaust somehow with an economic motivation (because the European Jews were money-hungry and gave everyone a reason to hate them).

I've not been reading the Bergoglidolatrous media and commentators at all, but has any of them dared commend and exalt JMB for all the inanities that Fr. Schall has underscored? (without, of course, calling them inanities outright).

Does JMB realize how much he has diminished and continues to diminish the papacy by exposing himself so willingly - and it seems, proudly - on all these occasions of relentless logorrhea? In a single month alone, he manages to incur more legitimate criticisms of his unbridled statements than those made against all the modern popes before him since the mid-19th century. Surely, that's not a record he wants, but he has it!

Must Catholics believe that Islam
is peaceful just because this pope insists it is?
by WILLIAM KILPATRICK

August 16, 2016

The Apostles’ Creed (updated version):

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the peaceful nature of Islam. Amen.

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Or, anyway, that’s how it ought to read according to Monsignor Stuart Swetland, President of Donnelly College in Kansas City. No, Msgr. Swetland didn’t actually propose a revision to the Apostles’ Creed, but he does seem to be saying that Catholics have a religious obligation to affirm that Islam is a religion of peace.

In a long statement following up on a radio debate with Robert Spencer on Relevant Radio’s Drew Mariani Show, Swetland, according to Spencer, “contends that the statements of recent Popes to the effect that Islam is a religion of peace fall into the category of teachings to which Catholics must give ‘religious assent.’”

Swetland writes: “My main purpose in having a discussion with Robert Spencer, a Catholic, on a Catholic radio network was to show clearly that his positions on Islam were at odds with Catholic teaching.” He goes on to give a sample of magisterial teachings on Islam, starting with Nostra Aetate and including statements and exhortations from Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI [And what statement might he have attributed to the author of the Regensburg Lecture????], and Francis. He then observes:

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Robert Spencer’s positions seem to be at odds with the magisterial teachings on what authentic Islam is and what Catholics are called to do about it (accept immigrants, avoid hateful generalizations, show esteem and respect, etc.). At least in the area of morals, Robert seems to be a dissenter from the papal magisterium.

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And Fr. Swetland is a dissenter from common sense. The pages of history, the daily news, and Islam’s sacred texts all attest to the fact that Islam is not a religion of peace. Or, to quote the Ayatollah Khomeini, “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those are witless.”

Khomeini was an Ayatollah Usma, a “Grand Sign of God” — an honor bestowed only on the most learned religious leaders. My guess is that the Ayatollah knew a lot more about Islam than Msgr. Swetland does.

I’m not saying that Swetland is “witless.” In fact, he seems to be an intelligent man. He has an undergraduate degree in physics, was a Rhodes Scholar, and studied philosophy and economics at Oxford. Still, high IQ and common sense don’t always go together. As George Orwell noted, “some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

In the radio debate and in an article responding to his statement, Robert Spencer does a fine job of dismantling Swetland’s arguments. For one thing, says Spencer, affirmations about the nature of Islam should not be a matter of Catholic faith and morals. In other words, it’s a serious overreach to contend that the “wrong” opinion on the nature of Islam or on the advisability of mass Muslim immigration may constitute dissent from Church teaching.

In saying that it does, Swetland has just created a whole new class of Catholic dissenters — one that probably numbers in the tens of millions. Spencer also observes that what previous popes had to say about Islam contradicts what current popes have said.

Which Roman Pontiff must Catholics agree with: “Pope Francis, who declared that ‘authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence,’ or Pope Callixtus III, who in 1455 vowed to ‘exalt the true Faith, and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East’?”

The linchpin of Swetland’s case is Nostra Aetate’s brief statement about the “Moslems.” But as Spencer, and I, and others have pointed out, there are numerous problems with Nostra Aetate.

One question that arises is whether Nostra Aetate was ever intended to be a dogmatic statement. That’s more of a question for Church historians to debate, but let’s just say for now that the question is debatable. [But it's no longer debatable, is it, when the Vatican through Mons. Pozzo who heads Ecclesia Dei has just said that Nostra aetate is among those Vatican II documents that are non-doctrinal and therefore non-binding - a statement that will presumably facilitate a proximate full reconciliation with Rome of the FSSPX.]

What is less debatable is that the section of Nostra Aetate that deals with the “Moslems” is highly problematic, highly selective, and poorly thought out. For instance, the document states (I’m using Swetland’s translation) that Muslims “venerate Jesus,” but to anyone familiar with the Muslim Jesus, it’s not at all clear that it’s the same Jesus. For one thing, the Muslim Jesus makes his appearance in the Koran for no other purpose than to refute everything that Jesus of Nazareth says about himself.

Nostra Aetate goes on to say that “they [Muslims] await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead.” What the document fails to say is that on the day of judgment, according to Islamic teaching, all non-Muslims will be cast into hell. As to the “reward of God”? Well, let’s just say that it’s not the same reward that Catholics await. Here’s a typical description from the Koran:

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As for the righteous, they shall surely triumph. Theirs shall be gardens and vineyards, and high-bosomed maidens for companions (78:31-34).

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There are many other omissions in Nostra Aetate. In fact, it seems to have been designed to present only a positive view of Islam. I’m not the only one to have noticed this skewed presentation. In a 2012 essay for L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict writes of a “weakness” in Nostra Aetate. “It speaks of religion solely in a positive way,” he said, “and it disregards the sick and distorted forms of religion.”

Sick and distorted? Benedict doesn’t speak explicitly of Islam, but exactly what other religion so readily lends itself to sick and distorted interpretations? The trouble with Nostra Aetate is that it leaves us with a very incomplete picture of Islam. The picture has enough holes to drive a fleet of suicide truck bombs through it.

The main problem with Msgr. Swetland’s statement, however, is its recklessness. Last week in Crisis I wrote that the Church’s handling of the Islamic challenge may prove to be far more scandalous than its handling of the sex abuse crisis. Church authorities are engaged in what amounts to a cover-up of Islam’s aggressive nature, and Msgr. Swetland is a prime example of this ecclesiastical determination to put a positive spin on everything Islamic. But the stakes involved in doing so are extremely high.

As I wrote last week, “as the gap widens between what Church officials say about Islam and what ordinary Catholics can see with their own eyes, the credibility of the Church may once again come into question as it did during the sex abuse scandals.”

Spencer makes the same point, albeit a bit more boldly: “If Monsignor Swetland is correct, then Catholics must affirm that Islam is a religion of peace…and the Catholic Church will be requiring that its faithful affirm the truth of what is an obvious and egregious falsehood.” By binding themselves to this falsehood, says Spencer, Catholic leaders will undermine their authority to speak in the name of Christ.

Msgr. Swetland worries that Spencer’s interpretation will drive moderate Muslims into the arms of the radicals. What he should be worried about is that his own (and Pope Francis’s) interpretation will drive common-sense Catholics out of the Church.

Does he really want to stake the Church’s authority on such a slender reed as a single section of Nostra Aetate and a few scattered papal statements? At a moment in recent history when it’s becoming clear to all but the most obtuse that Islam is not a religion of peace, is this the time for doubling down on a claim that flies in the face of all the evidence? Do Msgr. Swetland and other like-minded clerics want the Church to stand or fall on this fantasy view of Islam?

It can be reasonably argued that Church leaders should maintain a prudent silence about Islam’s aggressive nature lest Christians be killed in retaliation. But that is not the same thing as loudly and deceptively proclaiming that Islam is something that it is not—namely, a peaceful religion not unlike Christianity.

Monsignor Swetland says Catholics should “show esteem and respect” for Muslims. But where is the respect for Catholics? In asking Catholics to be submissively content with dangerously misleading views on Islam, Swetland betrays a low level of respect for the intelligence of ordinary Catholics.

When the Apostles’ Creed was first set down in writing, Christians didn’t know anything about Islam. It had yet to be invented. But one thing that early Christians did know is that they were supposed to be on the lookout for false prophets. Nowadays, however, for a certain kind of Christian with a certain kind of mindset, there are no false prophets or false religions. Since they don’t admit of false prophets or wolves in sheep’s clothing, those are the kind of Christians who are most likely to welcome the wolves into the sheepfold.

It's easy to pile up on the fairly anonymous Fr. Swetland, but why not look at the statements about Islam by more prominent and uncontestably mini-Bergoglios such as, for instance, new papal pet Cardinal Schoenborn????

August 16-17, 2016 headlines

PewSitter


Canon212.com



C212's banner headline is a John Allen story that is infuriating for its smarminess and faux-concern...though he does make an obvious
point I have remarked on before: that JMB and his propagandists are availing of the pope's seemingly irremediable foot-in-mouth disease
to blitz the public constantly, so that we would tend to forget whatever went before as we focus on the latest Bergogliade. Even if much
of what has gone before is of substantial continuing concern to the Church of Christ and her true 'faithful' and cannot simply be
shoved aside because there is always something new and outrageous, if not atrocious, Bergogliade to rail about...

Meanwhile, thanks to Steve Skojec for doing a round-up to update us with the latest developments in the Bergoglio Vatican's offensive
to court Beijing at any cost with the end in view of making JMB the first pope to visit China...

Are Cardinal Zen’s fears
coming to pass in China?
BY STEVE SKOJEC

August 16, 2016


Pope Francis, in a meeting with Argentinian socialist Fernando Solanas, quotes Zhou Enlai (Mao Zedong's comrade in arms and longtime Prime Minister) from memory.

Since the beginning of this year, I have been sharing with you the growing concerns of Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong as regards the Vatican’s increasingly conciliatory stance with the Chinese government, which controls the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, an ersatz replacement for the true Chinese Catholic Church, which has been forced underground, and is regularly persecuted.

In January, Cardinal Zen warned about a new “formula” allegedly under discussion at the time for the appointment of new Chinese bishops:

A recent article “A winter of darkness for religions in China” by Bernardo Cervellera on AsiaNews, says: “From information that has arrived from China it would seem that Beijing’s proposal is…: Vatican approval of the government recognized Council of Bishops,… [and]approval of the competency of this Council (and not the Pope) in the appointment of new candidates to the episcopacy who will be “democratically” elected (in short according to the suggestions of the Patriotic Association). The Holy See must approve the Council’s appointment and has a weak veto only in “severe” cases, which must be justified if used. If the Holy See’s justifications are considered “insufficient”, the Council of Bishops may decide to proceed anyway”.

If this information is accurate,
- Can the Holy See accept the claims of the Chinese counterpart?
- Does this approach still respect the true authority of the Pope to appoint bishops?
- Can the Pope sign such an agreement?

(Pope Benedict said: “The authority of the Pope to appoint bishops is given to the church by its founder Jesus Christ, it is not the property of the Pope, neither can the Pope give it to others”).

Do our officials in Rome know what an election is in China? Do they know that the so-called Episcopal Conference is not only illegitimate, but simply does not exist?

What exists is an organism that is called “One Association and One Conference”, namely the Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference always work together as one body, which is always chaired by government officials (there are pictures to prove it, the Government does not even try more to keep up appearances, it starkly flaunts the fact that they now manage religion!). Signing such an agreement means delivering the authority to appoint bishops into the hands of an atheist government.

In February, Zen condemned the Vatican’s Ostpolitik with Beijing, again hammering the idea that the atheistic, communist Chinese government should have a hand in the selection of Catholic bishops:

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What disquiets me is the sight of our Eminent Secretary of State [Cardinal Pietro Parolin] still intoxicated by the miracles of Ostpolitik. In a speech last year, at a Memorial for Card. Casaroli, he praised the success of his predecessor from the 1960s-1970s for "having secured the existence of the Church hierarchy in the communist countries of Eastern Europe".

He says: “In choosing candidates for the episcopate, we choose shepherds, and not people who systematically oppose the regime, people who behave like gladiators, people who love to grandstand on the political stage.”

I wonder: Who had he in mind while making this description? I fear that he was thinking of a Cardinal Wyszynski, a Cardinal Mindszenty, a Cardinal Beran. But these are the heroes who bravely defended the faith of their people! It terrifies me to realize this mindset and I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

On the day that an agreement is signed with China there will be peace and joy, but do not expect me to participate in the celebrations of the beginning of this new Church. I will disappear, I will start a monastic life to pray and do penance. I will ask the forgiveness of Pope Benedict for not being able to do what he was hoping that I could do. I will ask Pope Francis to forgive this old Cardinal from the peripheries for disturbing him with so many inappropriate letters.

The innocent children were killed, and the angel told Joseph to take Mary and the Child and flee to safety. But today would our diplomats advise Joseph to go and humbly beg for dialogue with Herod!?

---

In June, Zen advised that if Pope Francis signed an agreement with Beijing that violates the conscience of the faithful, they should avoid criticizing him, but they need not follow him.

And now, at last, we have it from Vatican expert Sandro Magister that just such an agreement is in the offing:

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In Appointing Bishops, the Pope Leans Toward Beijing

He is preparing, that is, to grant the communist authorities the privilege of selecting candidates. And he is exiling to an island in the Pacific the highest ranking Chinese archbishop in the curia, contrary to the agreement. But in China, Cardinal Zen has already taken the lead in the rebellion.

The exiled archbishop, in this case, is Zen’s fellow countryman bishop and friend Savio Hon Taifai – he too a Salesian like the cardinal – called by Benedict XVI from Hong Kong to Rome in 2011 as secretary of the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, but now dispatched by Francis to an island of the Pacific Ocean, as apostolic administrator of Guam, with his unexpected appointment last June 6.

Meanwhile, Magister lays out the scene unfolding between Rome and China:
In China, among the one hundred and nine Catholic bishops there are eight who have been consecrated at the behest of the communist authorities and who have never received the pope’s approval, thereby incurring excommunication, a couple of them with children and lovers.

But for none other than these eight, by the end of this summer or at the latest before the end of the jubilee Francis is ready to perform a spectacular gesture: a pardon.

Francis missed another stunning gesture by just a hair’s breadth last September 26, during his journey to Cuba and the United States.

That day, his touchdown in New York on his way to Philadelphia coincided with the landing of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was expected at the United Nations. Everything had been calculated for the two to cross paths “accidentally” at the airport and exchange a greeting. Xi was aware of this ardent desire of the pope, but in the end he let it drop and the meeting did not take place.

From that moment on, however, the secret contacts between the Vatican and Beijing underwent an acceleration. In October and then in January a delegation of six representatives of the Holy See went to the Chinese capital. And in April of this year, the two sides set up a joint working group that now seems to have come to an understanding over a point that the Vatican takes very seriously: the appointment of bishops.

Since it has been in power, in fact, the Chinese communist party has wanted to equip itself with a submissive Church separate from Rome, with bishops of its own appointment ordained without the pope’s approval, beholden to a Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association that Benedict XVI called “irreconcilable” with Catholic doctrine.

A Church of the regime, therefore, on the verge of schism with its eight excommunicated bishops, contrasted with an “underground” Church with about thirty bishops earnestly faithful to the pope, which however pays all the costs of clandestinity – oppression, surveillance, arrest, abduction.

And in the middle the vast gray zone of the remaining dozens of bishops who were ordained illegitimately but then were more or less reconciled with Rome, or were ordained with the parallel recognition of Rome and Beijing but must still remain under the iron control of the communist authorities.

The bishop of Shanghai, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, ordained in 2007 with the twofold approval of the pope and the government, has been under house arrest for four years for the simple offense of having resigned from the Patriotic Association. Two months ago he retracted, but he is still deprived of his liberty.

The eighty-five-year-old Joseph Zen Zekiun (in the photo), who has more freedom of speech in Hong Kong, has called “inevitable” the suspicion that this retraction was also desired by the Vatican, just to reach an agreement at any price.

That an agreement has already been reached was confirmed in recent days by Zen’s successor in the diocese of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, with an open letter released in Chinese, English, and Italian that bears all the marks of wanting to prepare the faithful to make the best of a bad lot…

For his part, Cardinal Zen has reported — and not for the first time — that he is being kept ignorant of the process. He laments that even as one of only two living cardinals in China and as a member of the Vatican’s advisory committee for China, he is “barred from knowing anything about how [in the secretariat of state]they are negotiating the affair of the Church in China.”...

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This would be an odd enough situation on its own, but my mind goes back again and again to the following video, in which Pope Francis makes a number of bizarre and troubling statements while meeting with Argentinian socialist and environmentalist Fernando Solanas. Among his strange allusions to the “myth of Shiva” (the Hindi god of destruction), he then pivots to a memorized quote of Zhou Enlai.


I keep coming back to this thought, to Francis's various comments favorable toward Marxists and against free markets, to his gracious acceptance of the blasphemous hammer and sickle “crucifix” (and accompanying medal bearing the same image) given to him by the Marxist president of Bolivia last year, and I find myself unable to shake the suspicion that Francis would almost rather deal with the communists in Beijing than the suffering underground Church throughout China.