MORE ON POPE FRANCIS' CONVERSION

This is translated from Italian to English with Google Translate. Thus it is a rough translation.

The turning point of the exhortation.  Pope Francis between synodal drift and primacy

 by Pietro De Marco

 Reflecting in recent days on the full-bodied event constituted by the exhortation "Querida Amazonia" and its European echo, I have gained the conviction that it is the first act in which the Supreme Pontiff Francis exercised his "munus".

 As is well known, the "munus" of the popes is to act as vicars of Christ, as the foundation of the universal Church ("tamquam saxum immobile" for Saint Ambrose), as custodians and teachers of faith and truth.

 As has also happened to me to observe, Francis has largely exercised his "potestas legifera, iudicialis et exsecutiva", according to a project which can be variously judged, in my opinion because it is instrumental to the construction of an episcopal body, in the world, and of officials,  at the center, ordered to the realization of its reform program, of its personal post-conciliar ideological position, in the form of pastoralism and evangelization.  Program and position in which the "bonum ecclesiae" was and remains difficult to see, indeed systematically almost misunderstood and distorted.  That is, the exercise of the "potestates" appeared as separate from the obligations of the "munus", from the very awareness of being the bearer.

 The judgment on the meaning of the "Querida Amazonia" unfolds on the thread of the paradox, it needs the context to decipher the "intentio auctoris" (if not really "legislatoris"), in short, it is made to upset the jurist.  But, let me remind you of Carl Schmitt's "dictum", "Sovereign is who decides on the state of exception".  The ecclesiastical situation (of universal scope) was in fact marked between the summer of 2019 and February 2020 by a dramatic emergency, of which Benedict XVI interpreted, that is, the emeritus bishop Joseph Ratzinger, and cardinal Robert Sarah.  While in the universal Church, permeated by the cheering of media unrelated to any institutional and supernatural logic, the silly chat unfolded on the innovation / reactionary confrontation, progress / closure.  Categories extraneous to the life of the Church and only falsifying (in itself there is no progress in the Church, as there is in dogma), all the worse if used inside it.

 At this juncture, consisting of an essential dossier of formal acts (the two Amazonian and Germanic synods, the letter to the German Church) and of powerful and codified expectations relating to the priestly ministry, the "Querida Amazonia" intervenes.  The exhortation does not give space, nor validate, to expectations.  However, its hermeneutics is impossible without overlapping it with the final document of the Amazonian synod and the requests, formulated in various places and literary genres, of the German synod.  By reading the "Querida Amazonia" in contrast (and enhancing its reception) the "intentio legislatoris" is instead accessible.

 Why consider it the first act of Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio which is coherent and consequent to the primatial "munus"?

 a) In order for it to exercise the responsibility of the "custos et magister fidei", only in the negative ("e silentio"), in the ramshackle, catholicly humiliating chorus of modernizers of the mystical body;

 b) because it is exercised by facing, as is Peter's duty, unprecedented pressure from some national Churches, first of all the German Church, which stand as interpreters of the very nature of the Church (synodality) and its true needs (alteration of the ministerial priesthood  ), to guides of the universal church, in terms of political and mass media pressure, conducted in no uncertain terms.

 The presumption of "showing those in charge in Rome" has awakened in Pope Bergoglio (already in the letter to the German Church of 29 June 2019) at least the healthy reaction of not wanting to be the laughing stock of anyone.  But I believe that the grace of Christ, of which he is vicar on earth, has assisted him in giving him strength and decision.  All the more assisted because its ecclesial culture, on which I have often insisted critically, and of which even the "Querida Amazonia" is imbued, was made to make it absolutely yielding in the face of the reformist reasons, German and Latin American, and of the so-called  ecclesial and extra-ecclesial public opinion.

 The only thing that the European advocates of updating and modernization have not taken into account is the profound, and very readable since the beginning of the pontificate, Pope Francis' dislike of the circles and progressive theological salons, for the episcopates in Mercedes or in  BMW, for charitable organizations with large systems and assets, for the national Churches that are concerned about taking financing, reorganize themselves with the help of company consultants.

 Bergoglio does not see a complete, solid doctrine of the Church, neither ecclesiological nor canonistic, but he does in any case possess a supernatural vision, the one that gives rise to the radical imperative of evangelization.  With this only instrument, passionate and instinctive, but clear in the letter to Germany and in the exhortation "Querida Amazonia", and with the help of a present grace, she said no.  He was pope.  We can only rejoice.  At another time, the analysis of the destructive potential that Amazonian acts, as they are, continue to carry within themselves.