VATICAN NEWS’ CONTINUING ATTEMPTS AT DAMAGE CONTROL THAT FAIL MISERABLY AND POPE FRAINCIS PROBLEM WITH JUDGEMENTALISM WHICH HE CONTINUALLY DOES HIMSELF…

Vatican News has yet another editorial on the Pope’s pastoral dogmas as a form of damage control as the Church’s bishops and laity spiral into division and schism over Pope Francis’ papacy and pastoral theology made into a dogma. You can read the commentary here.

Here is an excerpt:

The pastoral conversion of which the Pope speaks is not a cosmetic operation, a simple adjustment of schedules, a few minor adjustments to structures. It is something deeper, which engages the responsibility of everyone, and first and foremost that of ordained ministers. The etymological meaning of the word “conversion” is “to move from one place to another”, “to turn towards someone or something”, “to change direction”. The pastoral conversion Francis speaks of is the invitation to a radical change of outlook and mentality, not in the sense of somehow conforming to worldly thinking by watering down the Christian proclamation, but exactly the opposite. It is an invitation to revitalize the proclamation of the Gospel, concentrating on the essential, on the kerygma, knowing that we are increasingly dealing with interlocutors who no longer know it. Knowing that we must go out, take risks, meet others without prejudice, listen before judging, and not wait for people to come looking for us. The image of the Church as a “field hospital”, so dear to the Successor of Peter, is a powerful example. The root of pastoral conversion is profoundly evangelical: Jesus invited us not to judge lest we be judged, not to focus on the mote in the eye of those before us while ignoring the beam stuck in our own. Jesus overturned the religious logic and norms of His time by going first to untouchables and public sinners.

The purpose of pastoral conversion is one only, and it is the one that gives meaning to the Church’s existence: mission. That is, the witness of the infinite love of a merciful God Who embraces before judging and Who comes to meet us to lift us up if only we allow Him to do so, even if we only desire it.

MY COMMENTS: The problems with the commentary that I highlight in red are that Pope Francis has done nothing but to judge the Church, meaning Catholics of whatever rank. He categorizes a wide swath of Catholics as mentally ill, rigid, backwards and obstinate, all outside of his mandate and competence as the Supreme Pontiff and Bishop of Rome. This name calling and judgmentalism is meant to divide and conquer, polarize and make angry and is far from what Jesus would do as explained in red above. How this pope has treated those clergy and laity who followed what Pope Benedict XVI allowed for the TLM is breathtaking. He has exacerbated the negative feelings he already created by calling them backwards, rigid, ignorant, and mentally ill, and which by implication, included Pope Benedict. That wasn’t and isn’t helpful, but catastrophic. 

I also read an excerpt from the New York Times where a man who ministers to the LGBTQ+++ community told the reporter that Pope Francis told him  “Out of the blue, he said, ‘You know, what gets me most upset are priests who chastise people in the confessional, who reprimand them,’” Mr. DeBernardo recalled. It is that instinct, to emphasize pastoral welcoming over “giving litmus tests for orthodoxy,” that he sees as key to the new document. Once again, the pope throws priests under the bus based upon some anecdotal evidence of some priests some where. My question is, just how many laity actually go to Confession to hear a rigid priest scold them like this pope scolds the clergy over and over and over? And of those few who do go to Confession, how many of them are of the LGBTQ+++ community of sinners? Just wondering. 

The other problem is that what the pope is doing is meant to soften the ground for a complete change in the anthropology of the sacraments of the Church and her sexual morality which will embrace gender ideology. The commentary does not recognize how much many in the clergy and laity distrust the pope and his stealthy way of getting what he wants which is worldly rather than not. That should be addressed first and foremost and no smoke screens to say things to the contrary. No one would have dreamed in 2013 that a new pope would eventually publicly demand that priests in an unpriestly fashion bless couples in immoral public unions. It does not take a leap of logic to think that more will come which now seems unimagiable!