Two recent quotes from the Holy Father:
"Criticism helps me to walk on the righteous path of the Lord".
"If you must argue, argue. If you have something to say, say it. But do it like men, face to face, and as men of God who then go together to pray and try to differ together. And if you have crossed boundaries, then ask forgiveness".
Peremptory answers to those who say that criticism of the Roman Pontiff and of the Hierarchy should be done quietly by friends over an intimate drink, behind their backs, and not in a public forum!
Just to clarify--is this intended to signal a change in your commenting policy?
ReplyDeleteMy dear, "face-to-face" does not mean on the internet, where so much of this toxic nonsense takes place.
ReplyDeleteI find that drinking too much wine and criticizing the "religious class" with a group of like-minded people is a rather good and constructive way of spending Lent. Just as Her Majesty's loyal opposition (putatively) holds the government to high standards, so I hold high ecclesiastics to very high standards, and where they substantially fail then it is my duty to come down on them like a tonne of bricks.
ReplyDeleteBut some wishy-washy types don't think like me.
Per Rorate, the "If you must argue" comment was made during an address while the Holy Father was visiting Mexico as a spontaneous aside from his prepared remarks. The Mexican bishops seem to have not taken kindly to it, regarding it as a rebuke to them. I have not followed the Mexican episcopate in any particular way so I have no real idea, apart from the Rorate article, what the back story is. For a certainty they have their work cut out for them. Poor Mexico! They seem to have been in the cosshairs for quite a while now, and no relief in sight.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Father, thank you for your efforts on this blog. I very much look forward to reading it every day and derive great delight (and a glimmer of enlightenment) from doing so.
Re Tamquam's Mexico remarks, I suspect they like saying, Wait a minute, we have a large and vibrant church here, with very little inroads from fundamentalist missions. Now let's look at Argentina, or Buenos Aires, do be specific. Didn't we just read that there were 3 priests going to be ordained this year in Buenos Aires? And the loss of faithful Catholics in that country is staggering. Hmm. What's wrong with this picture? Who should be lecturing whom?
ReplyDeletePer Boris, I understand (I think from reading accounts by Sandro Magister at Chiesa?) that over the last 20 years the Church is dissolving and collapsing in Argentina and Honduras under Cdl. Bergoglio and Cdl. Maradiaga, which followed a similar style, dropping from 80-85% of the population to 55-60%. In contrast, the Church in Mexico, which deliberately followed a different path, has held firm at 80%. It seems the Bishops in Mexico actually hang together for some type of orthodoxy, and they don't cotton to "innovators" suggesting that the Church in Mexico follow the "new, homogenized" Argentinian/Honduran path.
ReplyDeleteThe "back-story" from Magister is that Papa B and Cdl. M are looking for a world-wide replication of their failing South American "strategy," and they think the Bishops in Mexico (like Poland, Africa, and even some in America [!]) are standing in the way, and Papa B wants to give them a dose of the new Argentinian/Honduran path.
A question comes to my mind.
ReplyDeleteWhere was this Parrhesia when the Franciscans of the Immaculate were being demonized, the Order torn apart and the basic rights of the members trampled on?
Unlike with the Legionaries, where high ecclesiastics and even St. John Paul II, turned deaf ears to the complaints, Pope Francis can’t profess ignorance about the treatment of the FFIs.
So, where is the much-vaunted Mercy? Or, more appropriately, where is the Justice?
Cardinal Burke tried this already.
ReplyDeleteIt would be very cathartic for me to full Parrhesia on him!
ReplyDelete(And I'm 1/2 Italian, so it would be a gesturable as well as verbal event. My Parrhesia would probably envoke a temporary Tourette's as every ten words or so I'd have to shout out "Breeding like rabbits" with a furious mamma-Italiano glare!)
I am waiting for Pope Francis to ask for forgiveness. I am waiting for a forgiveness for the forcibly imposed rupture we have all had to endure for 50 years. A really big apology for the idea that any Pope or loaded committee can repudiate what we have received and then substitute a constructed and edited version of Christianity that refuses to interact and pass on what was received.
ReplyDeleteI have just been reading "English Reformation" by Christopher Haigh. Bugnini and other Modernists.. even Paul VI have assumed to themselves powers they never had just as Henry VIII, Master Thomas Cromwell, Cramer and Elizabeth I. The defrauded either conform or fight and then give pretext to be crushed by malevolent authority.