Side by side comparison of the papal thrones for Benedict XVI and Francis
I have been reading liberal or heterodox commentators decrying what they are calling an ultra-right (read orthodox) schism in the Church led by, now get this, EWTN! Then these commentators go on to name the names of those who are now in SCHISM with Pope Francis! Who are some of these? The three biggest culprits are Cordilione of San Francisco (how ironic is that?), Morlino of LaCrosse and of course Burke of the Vatican. In addition, anyone who has supported Vigano is in schism with Pope Francis.
The word SCHISM from the leftist heterodox has to be just about the most incredible statement I've heard or read! Never mind how they treated Blessed Pope Paul VI in 1968 and up until his death because of Humanae Vitae and His Holiness public recognition that Vatican II had gone off the rails and the smoke of Satan had entered the cracks of the Church brought about by Vatican II's heterodox bishops and theologians, primarily priests and religious.
Never mind how they treated St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.
But this is my point: Having two popes today, one reigning, the other contemplative, and it seems God is keeping the contemplative pope alive throughout Pope Francis' reign for some reason only known to God now, but will be revealed in due time, we have two ways of looking at the papacy and how the Church should be.
I prefer Pope Benedict's papacy and vision for the future of the Churchwhich is Vatican II as understood as renewal in continuity. I prefer the looks of Pope Benedict's papacy with the restoration of so many visible signs of the papacy that points to the Monarchy of heaven with the Ultimate Monarch, the Most Holy Trinity whose subjects constitute the Communion of Saints.
Pope Francis has brought the visible image of the papacy down to a South American dictator's vision of the world ruled by those who wear the clothes of the common person or the military uniform, just think of the Castros. The resurrection and our true home of perfection in heaven are subverted by the plight of the poor and the need to make a eutopian village on earth and where the earth s placed above heaven.
Pope Benedict was clear, unambiguous and able to call out error and anathamatize evil and sin. The Church of the future needs to recover her authority to anathamatize! Pope Benedict continued Pope St. John Paul's vision of Divine Mercy never seperated from divine retribution for the unrepentant or the need of severe penance/punishment for the forgiven.
Pope Francis has recovered the flexible heterodox's view of forgiveness and the enablement of sin and the victimization of victims because of sin that continues, like bishops in the USA who sent their victimizing priests off to spiritual and psychological therapy in order to be forgiven and restored to public ministry without warning the unsuspecting laity and thus allow for future victims!
Pope Francis has recovered the idea of the 1960's that dogma and doctrine can change and the key phrase to obfuscate this heresy is "the development of doctrine!" He purposely creates ambiguity, confusion and chaos to promote a heterodox, progressive view of the Church promoted in the 1960's by liberals who were the cause of the "smoke of Satan" that entered the Church at that time.
Shall I go on?
Which do you want, a more rigid, Orthodox Church or a flexible, heterodox Church? As for me and my household I pick Benedict's vision of the papacy and Church!
18 comments:
Don't worry. Soon we'll be able to choose our "flavor" or "Catholic-brand." The current leadership considers schisms just a normal part of doctrinal development.
"But this is my point: Having two popes today, one reigning, the other contemplative,...
We don't have "two popes." We have one pope and one pope emeritus.
"Pope Francis has brought the visible image of the papacy down to a South American dictator's vision of the world ruled by those who wear the clothes of the common person or the military uniform, just think of the Castros.
I never saw the Castros in a white cassock with white fascia, have you?
"Pope Francis has recovered the idea of the 1960's that dogma and doctrine can change..."
See "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," John Henry Newman (1878)
See also "Dei Verbum" no 8, "This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. (5) For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her."
One of my greatest fears is that Dan might be right.
From WAPO on this topic yesterday, “veddy intahdesting”:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/pope-benedict-in-retired-seclusion-looms-in-the-opposition-to-pope-francis/2018/09/02/f4d262b2-aaca-11e8-9a7d-cd30504ff902_story.html?utm_term=.c90e3214cdb6
From WAPO yesterday on this same topic: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/pope-benedict-in-retired-seclusion-looms-in-the-opposition-to-pope-francis/2018/09/02/f4d262b2-aaca-11e8-9a7d-cd30504ff902_story.html?utm_term=.c90e3214cdb6
For comparison I wonder what John Paul ll throne photograph shows?
Last week I was in Rocamadour, an ancient pilgrimage site in south west France. When I'm on holiday I make a point of turning my cellphone off and avoiding the news - in any case French TV was preoccupied with a domestic political crisis which would not be considered newsworthy on the other side of the Channel. However, I spotted PF's saturnine countenance on the front page of a local newspaper under a headline which suggested he had dropped a bombshell. Intrigued, I read on.
It appeared that in his usual in-flight Q&A session en route from Dublin to Rome, PF had suggested that children who manifested homosexual tendencies might benefit from psychiatric treatment. This was proof, according to the writer, that PF's progressive modernity was a façade concealing a medieval mindset. Had he suggested burning a heretic or two, the outrage would scarcely have been greater. I had to chuckle.
Referring to Anonymous @ 10:05 on 3 Sep.
Newman wrote concerning doctrinal development: 'A true development may be described as one which is conservative of the course of antecedent developments, being really these antecedents and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with a corruption.'
It's fairly obvious that Fr McDonald does not take issue with this; rather with the modernist idea that doctrine and dogma can be made to change meaning to conform with the liberal spirit of the age. This was condemned by Pius X in 1907, but resurfaced in the 1960s. John XXIII at the opening of the Council stressed that although doctrine may have to be expressed in ways more accessible to 20th century man, it must be 'eodem sensu eademque sententia' (with the same sense and the same meaning).
The same Anonymous will no doubt be pleased to note that Newman described his Essay (1845, revised 1878) as an 'argumentum ad hominem', using the term in its true sense, rather than its ignorant and corrupted modern one.
Don't be so gay, John, when you try to correct others.
Oh, did I say, "gay?"
Now, one wonders if I am using it in its "true" sense or its "ignorant and cortupted" one.
Please... As if you were the authority on all things linguistic.
Anonymous Kavanaugh,
Gaze in the mirror and you will be viewing ignorant and corrupted (not corpupted)
Anon Anon 8.56AM,
Sir,
Your letter or your above ad hominem comment above
= further proof close to 90% of social media, blog etc comments and tweets are
= to hysteria.......
Re the word GAY,
Homo is in Pig Latin 101 or Geek Greek 101 ?? : "the same" or "a man" ??
Are we all playing by the same rules?
Or playing the man?
Regards,
Scott Morgan of the Sea MA (London School Of Ecology).
John,
I have read several biographies of C S Lewis d 1963.
One of several things that stuck in my mind about his life and views was how pointless it was even in the 1950s to daily obsess about daily events reported by the media; then and now too, close to 99% of daily news is forgotten news after less than a week.
His views on this from late 40s to 1963 are even more helpful to us all in this 21st century, I believe.
Anon 7.
Anonymous
As usual, latch onto the last sentence, which was an aside designed to goad you (whoever you are) into a reply. Ignore the substance of the comment, which wasn't to correct you, but to suggest that your juvenile attempt at point-scoring fell as flat as most of your efforts in this regard.
I'm not surprised you post under 'anonymous'. I don't claim to be an authority on 'all things linguistic' but rest assured that my command of English, not to mention logic is, on all the evidence, considerably better than yours.
You set yourself up as an Aunt Sally, so be prepared to accept whatever brickbats come your way.
On Doctrinal Development(or rather our understanding of it)
Envision a room which contains objects of different kinds. One can view the contents of the room through the walls which are made of glass, but cannot enter or change anything. As more and more light enters the room, it reveals more and more to the observer about what is in there. Likewise, as the observer moves around the outside of the room, more is revealed in that way.
Another perspective:
God instituted the laws which govern the universe when He created it. The "scripture" written into physical matter are the laws described by mathematical principles which govern its behavior and mark it bounderies and limits. Like God who created them, these laws are unchanging. Our discovery and understanding of these laws which govern the physical universe does not change these laws. Our understanding and knowledge of them is what changes and becomes more complete.
Like the laws and constants of the physical Universe, there exists spiritual laws and revealed truth whose source is God and being of Divine origin, these are not subject to opinion, dispute or arbitration. These laws constitute a true reference frame and guide, one of the purposes of which is to restrain the behavior of men who, having the gift of free will, can misuse that gift by disobeying God. These spiritual laws,revealed to us by God and the Holy Spirit and written down and codified by man, also have the purpose of enlightening us to know and serve God better. These constitute the Truth revealed to us by God, and through His Holy Spirit guiding His Church, He enlightens us to discover and know more about His unchanging Eternal Truth.
George
A good analogy. Newman wrote his 'Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine' in 1845, the year of his conversion. Its aim was to refute those Protestants who maintained that many beliefs accepted by Catholics as being de fide were in fact corruptions. It is an 'argumentum ad hominem' in the sense that the Protestant view is in itself contradictory and is undermined by its own inconsistencies. It is not a blueprint for the future development of Catholic doctrine, still less an endorsement of the modernist position as set out by Tyrell and Loisy in the first decade of the twentieth century, and Küng in the seventh.
Not that this will mean much to the egregious Anonymous (above). His attempts at clever put-downs aren't all that clever, and his response to losing an argument is to resort to crude sarcasm. Irony and sarcasm need to be witty in order to succeed, and those without cleverness or wit should avoid both.
John Nolan,
Isn't it fatiguing jousting with Anonymous Kavanaugh?
TJM
Fr Kavanaugh may be bone-headed, nit-picking and impervious to rational argument; he may have less knowledge of the Roman Rite than my Jack Russell terrier; his grasp of history may be tenuous at best; and his analogies may well be the most inapposite I have ever encountered.
Yet not everything he posts can be discounted. If indeed it is he who trolls under an anonymous title (and there are stylistic congruences which certainly point to this) then he is doing himself no favours.
Constantly exposing fools, mountebanks and trolls can indeed be fatiguing, but it's fun all the same.
John Nolan,
Well said!
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