I can remember even as a child when my Protestant proselytizers would tell me that the Vatican would invest in companies that manufactured birth control pills and devises and promoted abortions and a whole range of other immoral activities. I thought they were just being anti-Catholic with what I thought were falsehoods, but they were more than likely correct, not lying.
Of course any of us who have investments have to realize that the institutions investing our monies are investing them in corporations which do immoral things. That's the way it is. And most of us have cable TV, internet or Satellite TV where providers make mega bucks off of the most vile and crude forms of pornography. None of us blinks an eye. Even getting free-TV over an antenna supports stations owned by companies that provide pornography and do other immoral things.
This brings me to our funeral discussions about mafia dons getting elaborate Catholic funerals and their counterparts, Catholic politicians who are pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage and the like getting the same thing.
One wonders how much rich Catholics who are anything but Catholic morally are giving to bishops and parishes and none of the clergy want to alienate them for fear of losing their contributions. Am I being cynical here?
Saint Patrick's Cathedral has undergone mega millions of dollars for restoration, I mean, mega millions! How much of that money given is dirty money? Should dirty money be accepted and does it lead cardinals, bishops and priests to look the other way in order to keep the bucks coming?
And now, I think, we know why Pope Francis in some of his first words as the newly elected pope in the Sistine Chapel said he longed for a poor Church. It frees us from corrupt monies. He knew and knows the corruption that money has brought not only to the Vatican but to local dioceses and parishes throughout the world.
8 comments:
Really?
Are we talking about the same pope who permitted someone like Justin Bieber a private tour of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican because he paid tens of thousands of dollars to do so. He was allowed into the private apartment where saints lives ......wearing a baseball cap and saggy pants. I know I can just hear is now....saggy pants and a cap oh how silly to be bothered by that. Well yes I am in a sacred place .....so there you are.
Are we talking about the same pope who allowed a world renowned car company, A CAR COMPANY THAT MAKES LUXURIOUS CARS by the way, to have a private gala in the Vatican which included the Sistine Chapel. All because they paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege. The Sistine Chapel which is a papal chapel.....it's a CHAPEL!
He is causing confusion and scandal by not being clear, by silence in the face of massive betrayal of the Faith. The job/duty of any pope is not to be liked by anyone, it's to preach the gospel and clearly teach what the Church has always taught. Francis is not free to change or disregard any defined doctrine of the Church. Nor is he permitted to allow a practice which in effect denies the doctrines of the Church. That is called heresy. That is called evil. If he wants to be a social worker he should leave the priesthood and go be a social worker. I demand a pope who fearlessly teaches the Catholic Faith. I demand that. And I have a right as a Catholic to have a pope who is not a heretic.
I suppose the starting point is to ask how all of this relates to Church teachings on formal and material cooperation with evil.
Here is the message he is really sending: the Pope just gave his blessing to an Italian lesbian author of children's books dealing with same-sex families. The Vatican is scrambling to explain this as "just a courtesy." We need to order more sand; there is no room in the sand pile for anymore heads...
This raises an excellent point: when ought a lay man be more Catholic than his pastor, bishop....Pope?
I think the obvious answer is that we are obligated only to hold fast to the deposit of the faith handed down to us by the Popes, councils, martyrs, saints..... and thus if a given pastor, bishop or even a Pope should in act or omission fail to uphold any particular teaching that makes up this deposit of faith, we are not obliged to follow suit. We are in fact obliged to stay the course regardless of their defection in that respect.
But they remain our pastor, bishop, and Pope. They remain our otherwise religious authorities towards whom we continue to have obligations.
But one of the obligations is not blind obedience.
Thus if Pope Francis declares that sodomy is alright or concubinage/adultery is no big deal, he'd simply be wrong. Declaring him so doesn't make me MORE Catholic than the Pope, it merely makes him LESS Catholic.
I'm not going to hell for anyone's sake. Not the Pope's or the cool kids in Germany or the cool kids at Commonweal/America/Nat Cath. Reporter (none of whom are particularly brilliant if their blogs and websites are any evidence). I'm not going to hell to make the NEW YORK TIMES or LGBTQBBQ feel better about themselves.
Does this mean I hold myself independent of the pastor, bishop and Pope? By no means! Neither was St. Paul independent of St. Peter when he rebuked our first Pope. Neither was St. Catherine of Sienna or any number of other saints who occasionally had reason to rebuke a brother or prelate or Pontiff.
The key is to be judicious and never take a gaff or mistake or sin on behalf of someone in authority as a blanket, blank check to declare ALL their acts of government null and void.
Just as no one owes obedience to parents if they ask us to sin, neither do we owe obedience to priests, bishops or Popes. But if they ask us to do something legitimate then we very much DO owe them our honor and obedience.
Jusad, although what you say is certainly correct, it isn't so much these specific questionable acts on the Pope's part as it is his overall instilling of doubt and unease among the faithful. The shepherd does not hide behind trees and bushes and make growling noises like a wolf, clash cymbals together at night, or pasture his sheep on barren hillsides.
Note to Pope Francis: "...or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or, if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?" Matt: 7: 9,10
We don't have the bully pulpit of the pope but we do have our own voices, blogs, etc. and so we have a responsibility to clarify the faith to those in doubt as best we can.
Bishop-elect Barron shows us a simple format using youtube videos.
One wonders how much rich Catholics who are anything but Catholic morally are giving to bishops and parishes and none of the clergy want to alienate them for fear of losing their contributions. Am I being cynical here?
I dunno, Father. That's a good question. There's only so much one can speculate about, and beyond that, I doubt that it does much good. Most of us don't begin with pure motives, anyway, yet we need to start somewhere. It's not to say that "it's the thought that counts," but whether or not we mean to persevere in letting God purify our desires, and thus our motives, that is key.
Are priests and bishops willing to use that otherwise beautiful gesture as some sort of opportunity for evangelizing those Catholics in question? i.e. something like "it's a beautiful donation that you've given us, and we are most grateful to your outreach to our parish and to the poor. But have you considered that your advocacy of abortion impoverishes the larger culture? I don't want you to put yourself into a position where you are essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul-- not only does God see everything, but you are undermining your own soul." If they don't listen, then at least you warned them.
Plus, I think priests and bishops can find ways of condemning abortion, contraception, and euthanasia from the pulpit without naming names: in other words, these are things that are bad, because they hurt people. We've all, in our own ways, not done enough against those things that ensure that we end up with a culture where we cannot love each other as Christ has loved us for all of the distrust that it sows. The way out is the Church's Sacramental worldview. Catholics don't just need to hear certain things condemned; we need to hear what will empower us to live what the world tells us is "too hard" and "unreasonable." It's why there can be no such thing as regular Communion without regular Confession: it is unreasonable to expect the Eucharist to act effectively without what puts grease in the wheels. We aren't going to convince anyone by only talking about what we're against: we need to be clear and vocal about what we're for. We Catholics are pro-life because we are pro-unconditional love.
This brings me to our funeral discussions about mafia dons getting elaborate Catholic funerals and their counterparts, Catholic politicians who are pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage and the like getting the same thing.
That's a good analogy. And yes, it's problematic. Highly problematic.
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