Mike Lewis of “Where Peter Is” seems off-balanced since Pope Leo. Read is most recent commentary at his blog:
Dear Readers,
I’ve been meaning to write this since mid-December, and I apologize for the delay. Health issues, family responsibilities, prayer, and discernment all played a role in pushing this note back longer than I intended.
As Christmas approached, I stepped away more than I ever have since Where Peter Is was founded nearly eight years ago. It was not planned, but by the time Christmas eve rolled around, I realized that I needed some time to rest. For the first time, I allowed myself something like a sabbatical. The result, unfortunately, was unanswered emails, unpublished submissions, and delayed responses. If anyone has been frustrated by this bottleneck, I am responsible and I’m sorry.
My most astute and humble comments: The heterodox left of the 1960’s and 70’s were very anti-Pope Paul VI especially after he promulgated Humanae Vitae. All their heterodox left hopes were dashed by that document and Pope Paul’s upholding an all male priesthood. By the time I entered the seminary in 1976, the last full year of Paul VI’s papacy, the animosity against him by the so-called “liberal” wing of the Church was at an all time high.
Their hatred for Paul VI was mild compared to their hatred for St. Pope John Paul II and then Pope Benedict XVI.
Finally the aging liberals of my age and the backward looking younger generation enamored with the heady-post-Vatican II heterodoxy of the 1960’s and 70’s got their pope in Pope Francis.
Once pope hating heterodox Catholics who decried the ultra-Montanism of the Orthodox right, they became extremely ultra-Montane when they realized that Pope Francis was just what they wanted. . He would crush the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI and crush the pre-Vatican II Mass and all things pre-Vatican II. He would open processes needed for gay marriages by allowing the blessing gay relationships, open the processes needed for a female (or whatever gender is claimed) diaconate, and one day to priests, bishops and the pope. He would begin processes that would lead to the collapse of Humanae Vitae, and natural law and he would turn some sins into virtues, especially in the areas of sexuality and invite todas, todas, todas, into the Church with no strings attached. All of this would be accomplished by the new synodality he promoted that would lead to parliamentary processes changing the doctrines, morals and sacraments of the Church, a parliamentary process undermining the authority of bishops and making the laity equal in voting. The Church would no longer be a hierarchy. We would have not a new Church, but a different church.
But now, the heterodox left are in a state of anxiety about Pope Leo XIV as His Holiness is reversing so much of what Pope Francis did, especially his “humility” in dress, vestments, residence and so much more. All the externals the heterodox left hate, Leo is embracing.
He is making synodality more orthodox and my bet it will return authority to the College of Cardinals and the College of Bishops, but with lay collaboration and input.
And then the poor old “Where Peter Is” blog, created to promote their newly found ultra-Montanism in their most humble and Vatican II Pope, Pope Francis, is now dealing with Pope Leo who is courting the disenfranchised of the popes prior to Pope Francis.
WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO? OH! WHAT IS “WHERE PETER IS” TO DO?
I recommend folding up and throwing the towel in or merge with the National catholic Reporter!
3 comments:
In regard to his attitude toward holy Pope Leo XIV:
I have found Mike Lewis' love, respect, and obedience just as holy and profound as that which he had rendered unto holy Pope Francis (requiescat in pace).
Pax.
Mark Thomas
In regard to Pope Francis' (requiescat in pace) supposed liberalism:
Father McDonald, a few days following Pope Francis' (requiescat in pace) having fallen asleep in the Lord, you had promoted the following from Bishop Barron...
...you acknowledged that the following as among "the great things Pope Francis accomplished, especially being a pastoral pope...'
Bishop Barron:
"What I find perhaps most intriguing about Pope Francis is what he didn’t do.
'In the first days following his election, the buzz was that he was a “conservative,” an authoritarian whom the Jesuits had exiled after difficult years in administration.
"But soon enough, when it became clear that Francis in fact leaned to the port side of the ideological spectrum, many on the Catholic left commenced to see him as the long-awaited liberal savior, the one who would revive the postconciliar dream that had been punctured by John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
"Francis, they were convinced, would, at long last, bring us married priests, women priests, and gay marriage, a liberalizing of the Church’s teachings on abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and birth control.
"Well, he delivered on precisely none of it.
"The great Catholic surrender to the demands of the culture didn’t happen on his watch, and it was amusing in the extreme to watch the mainstream liberal Catholic media try to come to terms with this.
"In fact, abortion had no stronger opponent than Francis, who frequently compared it to the “hiring of a hitman.”
'And he was a strenuous critic of what he often called “gender ideology,” the imposition of which on developing nations he termed “ideological colonization.”
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Where Peter Is and National catholic Reporter would jive well. The former has published articles by a writer who claims that one would have accept the Trinity is made up of four Persons if the pope said so; the latter has published articles by a writer who has explicitly denied defined doctrines of the Church.
On a more personal note, I've long thought Mike Lewis is running the risk of becoming a more "liberal" Steve Skojec type. I hope his "sabbatical" may allow a sort of course correction.
Nick
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