IF IT IS OKAY TO GO BACK TO THE 1970’S; WHY IS IT BAD TO GO BACK TO THE 1950’S?

Media critical of the pope do ‘the devil’s work,’ Francis says

 In the article I link above, these are the money bytes. Discuss:

ROME – In his conversation with Slovakian Jesuits while visiting the country last week, Pope Francis took a swipe at his media critics, saying he sometimes loses patience with people who insult without knowing the facts.

He also criticized members of the Church who he said are too nostalgic for the past, such as priests who are more attached to the Old Latin Rite of the Mass than they are to their parish communities, which he said is a sign that the Church is going backwards.

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During the conversation, one Jesuit noted that people are divided about Pope Francis, with some believing his is heterodox and others idealizing him.

In response to a question from this Jesuit about how he handles people who look at him with suspicion, Francis pointed to “a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the pope.”

Although he did not specifically mention which Catholic television network he was referring too, many have interpreted the remark as a jab at American conservative broadcaster EWTN, or the Eternal Word Television Network, which has consistently aired commentary critical of Pope Francis and his decisions.

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He noted that there are also many priests “who make nasty comments about me,” saying he sometimes loses patience with these people, “especially when they make judgments without entering into a real dialogue.”

“I can’t do anything there. However, I go on without entering their world of ideas and fantasies. I don’t want to enter it and that’s why I prefer to preach,” he said, noting that some people admonish him for not speaking more about topics such as holiness.

“They say I always talk about social issues and that I’m a communist. Yet I wrote an entire apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate,” he said.

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Referring to his decision earlier this year to tighten restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, Francis voiced hope that this decision will help the Church “return to the true intentions of Benedict XVI and John Paul II.”

Noting that his decision was made after a consultation with bishops from around the world, “there are young people who after a month of ordination go to the bishop to ask for it. This is a phenomenon that indicates that we are going backward.”

To this end, the pope recalled how during a conversation with a cardinal, the cardinal told him that some newly ordained priests had come to him requesting permission to study Latin for the celebration of Mass.

The cardinal’s response, Francis said, was that “there are many Hispanics in the diocese! Study Spanish to be able to preach. Then, when you have studied Spanish, come back to me and I’ll tell you how many Vietnamese there are in the diocese, and I’ll ask you to study Vietnamese. Then, when you have learned Vietnamese, I will give you permission to study Latin.”

This cardinal, Pope Francis said, made these priests “return to earth.”

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Francis said he makes the decisions he does “not because I want to start a revolution. I do what I feel I must do. It takes a lot of patience, prayer and a lot of charity.”

One Jesuit present at the meeting, who is close to Pope Francis’s age, commented that there appear to be a lot of people in the Church who wish to return to the past, or who seek security in the way things were done previously.

Pope Francis agreed with the remark, saying the Church today is suffering from “the ideology of going backward. It is an ideology that colonizes minds. It is a form of ideological colonization.”

This is not so much a universal problem but is rather “specific to the churches of certain countries,” the pope said, though he did not mention which countries he was referring to.

Looking to the past is a means of trying to find security, he said, saying, “It frightens us to celebrate before the people of God who look us in the face and tell us the truth. It frightens us to go forward in pastoral experiences.”

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Francis then recalled the discussions during the 2014-2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family, saying it took a lot of work “to make it understood that couples in second unions are not already condemned to hell.”

Referring to the LGBT community, the pope said it also “frightens us to accompany people with sexual diversity.”

“We are afraid of the crossroads and paths that Paul VI spoke of. This is the evil of this moment, namely, to seek the path in rigidity and clericalism, which are two perversions.”

My comments:

If returning to the past means recovering our Catholic identity as it concerns the Deposit of Faith, as well as the faith and morals of the Church, that count me in. What Pope Francis often describes seems to me a Church that is an NGO and very worldly taking her cues from the world. Pope Francis seems to want to take the path of liberal Protestantism symbolized by what has happened to the Anglican Communion—it has been a dismal failure. Why would the pope want to do this is beyond me.

But we see progressive Catholics trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results from the results they created which has destroyed religious life and left it on life support and chased 90% of Catholics away from the Church so that only 5% to 20% of Catholics actually attend Mass.

And finally, while there is much more I could write, the example the pope gives concerning the Cardinal complaining about newly ordained wanting to learn Latin in order to celebrate the older Mass, His Holiness in fact and unwittingly gives the reason why Latin should be the language of the Liturgy because we are being asked to learn Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese and every other language under the sun when all is needed is  Latin Mass with someone to translate Father’s homily into the vernacular of the people. 

Common sense seems to elude so many in the hierarchy from the top down.