I here republish an old post with its original thread, from 29 October 2018. When one ventures upon prophecies, it is always interesting to know if they are fulfilled! So it would be kind if readers were to let me know of any signs that I was right in the apprehensions which I voiced! I will read and then delete comments which their authors preface with NOT FOR PUBLICATION. I quite appreciate that people have good reasons for not exposing themselves to persecution by the Ministers of Mercy who patrol the Bergoglian Church.
I will add a few further thoughts the day after tomorrow.
In the chaos of the 1960s, one notable casualty was the Church's system of the censorship of books. This disappearance was, I think, inevitable; in that febrile and aggressive atmosphere, it is inconceivable that the process of waiting for a diocesan Censor Librorum to read a book and make his comments, then for him to negotiate with an author about his/her ambiguities, and to agree a text ... then for the Ordinary or his VG to issue the imprimatur ... it is inconceivable that such a system could have survived. Then add Humanae Vitae and the spate of dissenting books and articles which would have needed to be refused the Nihil obstat ...
There was undoubtedly rejoicing at the disappearance of the pre-modern apparatus of censorship; predictably, especially among 'liberals'.
Clandestinely, this development led to a new and only semi-visible form of censorship. The dominance of certain 'schools' in Academe, especially in subjects such as Liturgy, Biblical Studies, and Moral Theology, made it increasingly difficult to secure publication of ideas which defended or explicated Tradition.
Although the boot was invisible ... it was now on the other foot.
But now comes the paradox. The disappearance of Censorship preceded, at a polite distance, the emergence of the Internet. And in our own age it has become very difficult for anybody to monitor, let alone to control, the myriad ideas and opinions which can flicker across the World's computers. And, among all this material, orthodox and traditional statements and ideas have as free an access as everything else to the many fora of discussion. I very much doubt if the examination and critical assessment of this pontificate would have been as open and free as it has been, had the Internet not existed.
But now ... Synod 2018 Paragraph 146.
"The Synod hopes that in the Church appropriate official bodies for digital culture and evangelisation are established at appropriate levels ... Among their functions ... [could be] certification systems of Catholic sites, to counter the spread of fake news ..."
I very much dislike the look of this. It is no secret that some members of the CBCEW were, for years, very nervous about bloggers and especially clerical bloggers. The disgraceful episcopal suppression of one famous diaconal blog became quite a cause celebre. Management had lost a significant control. It is only a year or two since my friend Fr Ray Blake bravely put on the public record that he had found tanks parked on his lawn: tanks in the shape of his Bishop passing on the cheerful news that "The Cardinal doesn't like ...".
We seem to have come a long way from those broad sunlit uplands when Benedict XVI (remember him? The 'Rat', the 'Inquisitor', the 'Panzer Cardinal'? Yes, that one) encouraged blogging, and especially clerical bloggers. Now, the era of the boors and the bullies.
Shall we, in a few years' time, discover that we have Diocesan, National, and Worldwide systems for closing down free discussion in the Church? After all, the Synod will have "called for it", won't it?
"Synodality" sounds so democratic, modern, open and free. What's not to like? And this Synod has concluded with the usual flurry of synthetic Bergoglian rhetoric about the Holy Spirit. In such liberated and happy times, don't you need to be paranoid to be suspicious?
Don't you believe it. Bullies are bullies are bullies.
There are a significant number of Bishops who do not understand that fake news quickly passes but truth is eternal and cannot be suppressed. Most Bishops will not deal with difficult subjects and think silence and cover up is the easy way for them. Catholic bloggers and news sites are doing more good for the Church than the Bishops collectively.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I saw that. What a great way to slow down evangelization, and promote the idea that Catholicism is a prison!
ReplyDeletePeople like to complain about attacks on freedom of religion from outside the Church. But the real threat is coming from inside the Church. Those who speak the truth, that is, defend simple Catholic Doctrine and try to practice the Faith, find themselves banned from dioceses, threatened with incarceration in psychiatric institutes, forced into hiding, suspended a divinis, barred from public events, stripped of office, and publicly maligned. Who knows how many are intimidated into silence? It is a regime, an anti-Catholic regime, robbing us of the Catholic life that is rightfully ours. Thank you, dear Father, for having the courage to tell the truth.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how this is done. For the Internet we now have those little padlocks in our URLs that tell us that our connection is secure and we are indeed communicating with the site we requested. Perhaps they can get together with the IETF and create a new certification system where a little halo will appear when you are connected to an approved site, but a red devil if it is one of the baddies like Church Militant, Father Z, Rorate Caeli, etc. I expect an RFC any day now.
ReplyDeleteAnthropocentric politicising increases in inverse proportion to the decrease in the teaching of Doctrine.
ReplyDeleteThe more binding doctrine is undermined by subterfuge the more non-binding politicising is asserted to be Magisterial.
It is the job of a Bishop to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify and, according to the Catholic Encycloedia, this is the job of The Pope;
He is to be the principle of unity, of stability, and of increase. He is the principle of unity, since what is not joined to that foundation is no part of the Church; of stability, since it is the firmness of this foundation in virtue of which the Church remains unshaken by the storms which buffet her; of increase, since, if she grows, it is because new stones are laid on this foundation.
Francis refuses to do his job; worse, he is actualising his praxis in direct contradiction to the grave warning words of Pope Saint Gelasius:
Pope St. Gelasius (492-496), in his epistle Licet Inter Vari
What pray permits us to abrogate what has been condemned by the venerable Fathers, and to reconsider the impious dogmas that have been demolished by them? Why is it, therefore, that we take such great precautions lest any dangerous heresy, once driven out, strive anew to come up for examination, if we argue that what has been known, discussed, and refuted of old by our elders ought to be restored? Are we not ourselves offering, which God forbid, to all the enemies of the truth an example of rising again against ourselves, which the Church will never permit….Or are we wiser than they, or shall we be able to stand constant with firm stability, if we should undermine those [dogmas] which have been established by them?”
Denzinger, 161)
With apologies to Bp. Warburton, Fr. Hunwicke:
ReplyDelete"Synodality-doxy, my Lord," said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper, — "Synodality is my doxy, — heterodoxy is another man's synodality."
The Church is now so universally deemed to be corrupt that the President of the USCCB has been publically invited by the Feds to please not destroy any more incriminating documentation, or he’s going to be in a heap of trouble. But no matter – these paragons are quite sure that they are the people best qualified to tell the rest of us what we can and can’t read.
ReplyDeleteOn the face of it, reversing the abolition of the Index isn’t very postconciliar but maybe it’s a kind of progress, yeah? An online login system could be devised to execute the process…. They could get, or steal, people’s details from parish Gift Aid records, or from Facebook - in fact, as Facebook are world leaders in this sort of opinion management, perhaps they could be co-opted as official partners. True, there isn’t a lot of obvious parrhesia in this I grant you, but at least it would avoid the distressing need to station papal agents at the ports, raid booksellers’, and try people for sedition, with all the concomitant hangin’ and drawin’ (which are sins now anyway). Go for it, that’s what I say.
Some years ago there was a website called RealCatholicTV. Then In December 2011, the archdiocese of Detroit publicly released two press releases holding that the digital station realcatholictv.com was not permitted to use the word "Catholic" within its name according to their reading of canon law. The press release stated, "The Archdiocese has informed Mr. Voris and Real Catholic TV, RealCatholicTV.com, that it does not regard them as being authorized to use the word 'Catholic' to identify or promote their public activities … The Church encourages the Christian faithful to promote or sustain a variety of apostolic undertakings but, nevertheless, prohibits any such undertaking from claiming the name Catholic without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority."
ReplyDeleteMichael Voris simply changed the name to Church Militant. Meanwhile lots of universities in the USA are able to call themselves Catholic even though they promote the exact opposite of what the Catholic Church teaches. And, of course, there is the notorious Catholic National Reporter which Fr Zuhlsdorf calls the Fishwrap. Their anti-Catholicism doesn’t stop them using the word ‘Catholic’. So any system of certification is bound to be flawed. But who would pay any attention to it? In fact, non-certification might be a badge of honour and certification might be a sign of heterodoxy. But just imagine the bureaucracy that would be set up to police Catholic websites. More jobs for the doctrinally-challenged.
This is much ado about nothing. The Vatican already has the .va domain name, and my understanding is that they control .catholic. They can say that only web sites on those domains are "certified." Likewise, the objection to the use of "Catholic" in "RealCatholicTV.com" came 7 years ago and only resulted in Voris changing his site's name to "ChurchMilitant.tv". I think this pretty well delineates what the hierarchy can practically hope to achieve.
ReplyDeleteThere would be one good use for synodal certification: that would tell us which blogs NOT to read.
ReplyDeleteThis is another slap at laity and clergy who teach and/or follow 2000 years of Church teaching and doctrine, and try to write in that context.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that the Vatican has yet to realize that few pay attention to what the Bishop of Rome says or what comes out of these synods. The ship has sailed and Francis in on shore waving to it and no one's paying any attention at all.
ReplyDelete>blockquote>In the chaos of the 1960s, one notable casualty was the Church's system of the censorship of books. This disappearance was, I think, inevitable; in that febrile and aggressive atmosphere, it is inconceivable that the process of waiting for a diocesan Censor Librorum to read a book and make his comments, then for him to negotiate with an author about his/her ambiguities, and to agree a text ... then for the Ordinary or his VG to issue the imprimatur ... it is inconceivable that such a system could have survived. Then add Humanae Vitae and the spate of dissenting books and articles which would have needed to be refused the Nihil obstat ...</blockquote>
ReplyDeleteThe loss of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1966 was another wound to the Body of Christ. It could also have been brought forward into this age of quick publishing and ever quicker communication by being pruned of old works that were no longer a threat to the faithful through obsolescence, or existing ample public refutation by the Church's approved publications, or existing, repeated warnings given to the faithful. Works that remain an active, pernicious danger to the faithful should be answered by the Church with all deliberate speed through scholarly but accessible refutation. The faithful would have an opportunity for instruction and strengthening of our faith that outright banning lacks. Also, outright banning of media only makes the Church a laughingstock and hinders evangelization.
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Bud said... "fake news quickly passes" (29 October, 2018)
ReplyDeleteI disagree. The Black Legends are examples of Fake News that Protestants have been repeating for hundreds of years. The 19th century Protestant polemicist invention of medieval churchmen and Scholastics arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is Fake News and it is still around. Millions still propagate the Fake News that Copernicus was considered a heretic by the Church because he suggested that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Fake News about Galileo still abounds. By the way, I've personally encountered all these examples of Fake News not only in pop culture media but also in books that are considered scholarly and freely repeated by college professors in class lectures.
how many votes did that paragraph get?
ReplyDeleteDon't the liberals always point negatively to Pope St. Pius X for battling against modernism by having folks report on those who exhibited modernist tendencies? How is this condemned practice of monitoring now good?
ReplyDelete