HOLY FATHER ATTENDS AD ORIENTEM MASS AT SAINT PETER'S BASILICA (SOME PUNDITS BELIEVE IN ORDER TO EVALUATE CARDINAL SARAH'S PROPOSAL THAT MASS IN THE ORDINARY FORM BE CELEBRATED AD ORIENTEM!) AND MY BOMBSHELL PREDICTION ABOUT POPE FRANCIS AT THE END!

As usual, Pope Francis has created another stir. On Friday he attended Mass and sat in the congregation for the Memorial of Saint Pope Pius X.  Progressives are delighted that a pope would simply attend Mass and received Holy Communion as lay person would. I wonder if His Holiness received on the tongue or in the hand???? I suspect on the tongue as in the hand technically isn't allowed in the Vatican City State.

Progressives didn't comment on the style in which the Holy Father received Holy Communion as a lay person might.

Neither did progressives point out to anyone or show any pictures of the Mass the Holy Father attended. It was an Ordinary Form Mass but celebrated at the attached altar of Saint Pope Pius X in the Basilica, a side altar.  In other words, horror of horrors for ill-informed progressives, the priest had his back to the Holy Father and the rest of the congregation! It was celebrated toward the apse or better yet the liturgical east.

Of course Pope Francis has celebrated Mass ad orientem a number of times at the Vatican.

 But I suspect His Holiness hasn't experienced it from the congregation's point of view (POV). Perhaps the Holy Father is discerning with Cardinal Sarah a rubrical change (to make more explicit what is already allowed) for the Ordinary Form of the Mass in terms of Ad Orientem? We know that Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship has already promoted ad orientem as something that should be the norm and Cathedrals should model!!!! Have you heard any progressive blogs comment on that??? In fact, except for my blog, have any blogs made comment on that bombshell?

Keep in mind that Pope Francis had already celebrated a private Mass earlier in the morning and was simply making a pilgrimage to the Basilica to pray before the altar of Saint Pope Pius X but at the same time that a Mass was being celebrated there. Was the Holy Father during the Mass praying a devotional prayer to Saint Pope Pius X for whom Pope Francis has a great devotion? Was His Holiness also praying the Holy Rosary at the same time? Horror of horrors if true. 

It is well known that Pope Francis has a great admiration and respect or devotion for his predecessor, Saint Pope Pius X. Horror of horrors for progressives is to see what Saint Pope Pius X did in his papacy. He is surely one of the greatest popes of the 20th century and a great defender of the true Faith:

From Wikipedia: Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox theology. His most important reform was to order the codification of the first Code of Canon Law, which collected the laws of the Church into one volume for the first time. He was also considered a pastoral pope, in the sense of encouraging personal holiness, piety and a daily lifestyle reflecting deep Christian values. 

Pius X was particularly devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the specific title of Our Lady of Confidence; his papal encyclical Ad diem illum expresses his desire through Mary to renew all things in Christ, which he had defined as his motto in his first encyclical. Pius X believed that there was no surer or more direct road than by the Virgin Mary to achieve this goal.^[4] Pius X was the only pope in the 20th century with extensive pastoral experience and implementation at the parish level, which led him to favor the use of the vernacular language in teaching catechesis, while the encouragement for frequent reception of holy communion became a lasting innovation of his papacy.

Pius X defended the Catholic faith against popular 19th-century attitudes and views such as indifferentism and relativism which his predecessors had warned against as well.

Pius X vehemently opposed modernism, which claimed that Roman Catholic dogma should be modernized and blended with nineteenth-century philosophies. He viewed modernism as an import of secular errors affecting three areas of Roman Catholic belief: theology, philosophy, and dogma.

Personally, Pius X combined within himself a strong sense of compassion, benevolence and poverty, but also stubbornness and a certain stiffness.^[7] He wanted to be pastoral in the sense that he was the only pope in the 20th century who gave Sunday homily sermons in the pulpit every week. 

MY BOMBSHELL ANALYSIS OF POPE FRANCIS STYLE OF LEADERSHIP:

In light of the example Saint Pope Pius X gives to Pope Francis, I personally see the Church at an epochal battle between two polarized forces in the post-Vatican II Church. Those forces truly came to the surface during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Under his papacy, it appeared that interpreting the Second Vatican Council within the hermenuetic of continuity with what had preceded Vatican II had finally won the day.  The Ratzinger school had finally triumphed over the more radical Kung and Schillebeeckx schools of thought completely in rupture with the past and the less radical, but very progressive Kasperite school of thought.

But the backstabbing and scandals in the Vatican thwarted the complete victory of Pope Benedict with his resignation two and a half years ago.

And now, under Pope Francis, whose papal hero is Saint Pope Pius X, we see a truly epochal battle between the two aging proponents of how best to interpret Vatican II and move forward. It appears to some that the Kung, Schillebeeckx, Kasper schools of ideology is in its last throws as this aging, dying faction in the Church is trying finally to win the battle (like dead monsters in horror movies who pop out of the water at the calm conclusion of the movie only to frighten the movie-goers into one last adrenaline rush!). 

My proven clairvoyance  tells me that Pope Francis is acting somewhat like a Trojan Horse to finally put to an end the destructive silliness of the  Kung, Schillebeeckx, Kasper school of thought and rupture by allowing their aging, dusty, corrupt ideologies to resurface out of the water like a once thought dead monster and allow once and for all open discussion on their hairless, toothless, wrinkled way of thinking in order to codify like Saint Pope Pius X did with canon law, what the Church actually believes in the post-Vatican II era when Pope Francis will finally side with and elevate to sainthood his immediate living predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI!

Like any infection in the body, the Kung, Schillebeeckx, Kasper infection in the Body of Christ must be brought to the surface, lanced and cleansed like a boil that has to pop to get rid of the infection once and for all in order to heal! Of course the infection in the boil is a mess as it comes out!

Pope Francis is a genius!