HOW CONCERNED ARE THE MAJORITY OF CARDINALS AND BISHOPS OF THE CHURCH ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH UNDER THE CURRENT PAPACY? IS IT HYPERBOLE OR IS IT REAL? I ASK; YOU ANSWER…

 In my most humble opinion, the culprit for the devolving nature of the Church under the current supreme pontificate is this pontificate’s embrace of the late 1960’s and 70’s interpretation of Vatican II, the school of rupture with the past which Pope Benedict properly called out. Why this pope is so enamored with this post Vatican II period of the Church and the chaos it created then and has created anew now, is beyond comprehension. The only way out is a return to the common sense of Pope Benedict, his Christmas elocution to the Curia on interpreting Vatican II through the lens or hermeneutic of “reform in continuity.” Please God, if the 1970’s can return under the current pontificate, Pope Benedict’s well reasoned vision for the Church and Vatican II’s interpretation will return and with a vengeance!!!

Bombshell memo to cardinals on next papal conclave

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 15, 2022

My comments first: When alarm is voiced about Pope Francis’ papacy, I often wonder if I am reading all the wrong things that confirm this alarm and from all the usual suspects who, unfortunately, seem to have a loose screw or are too cowardly to add their name so they use a pseudonym. Think Vigano, who does use his name, but is clearly being co-opted by others to make outrageous, paranoid, wild, unsubstantiated and apocalyptic statements. He simply can’t be trusted as a good source although he does tell some truth in hyperbole. 

And now there is this anonymous message to the college of cardinals as they start to gear up to elect the next pope. And Cardinal Pell is demanding that disciplinary action be taken against one of the Jesuit Cardinals guiding the synod on synods as well as action against what is happening in Germany far more divisive than anything traditionalists are doing to sow division in the Church!

I think we have to acknowledge that there is alarm in high places as to what has transpired in the Church since Cardinal Bergoglio was elected nine years ago. The Church is in crisis and serious division and it seems to be exacerbated by a pope who likes chaos except if it is calls into question his liberal agenda. Then and only then does he crack down on that division, but only if it is traditional in nature. 

This pope is ailing and in more than one way. I notice, apart from his serious limp, that his stomach is quite distended and not apparently from overeating but perhaps related to his colon surgery. 

So, one would expect the cardinals would be discussing a successor. 

It has to be clear to anyone who keeps up with the Vatican and this pope, that this Vatican and this pope are the most divisive figures in the Church in centuries. And this pope seems to relish creating division and poking his adversaries in the eye even as this poking alienates others who may well appreciate some of his papacy. Think of a Jesuit pope traveling to a Jesuit Church and concelebrating a Mass celebrating the 400th anniversary of the canonization of the Jesuit’s founder and a day before that pope’s 9th anniversary as pope and the pope, who preaches the Mass, concelebrates the Mass and offers the final blessing is not vested in any kind of liturgical garment, which is against all liturgical laws and certainly alien to papal participation at a Mass. What message and whose eyes was he sending and poking? 

And yet he and Archbishop Roche expect the Church to follow the letter of the law, like a doctor of the law, when it comes to the crackdown on the older Liturgical books. It is to laugh. 

But here are some money quotes from Phil Lawler whose article is linked above in his title:

After years of doctrinal confusion and disciplinary inconsistency, prominent cardinals are clearly growing restive about the leadership of Pope Francis.

Today Cardinal George Pell issued a highly unusual public statement, calling for a Vatican rebuke to two other prominent prelates whose public statements have suggested a “wholesale and explicit rejection” of Church teachings on sexuality.

And on the same day, a prominent Italian journalist made public a memorandum which, he said, is now circulating among members of the College of Cardinals, pronouncing “that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects: a catastrophe.”

The first tasks of the new pope will be to restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law, and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition.