I think it was Arcbishop Tucho Fernandez who explained, early in this potificate, that when the Pope realised time was getting short, he would act more speedily (can anyone see a link to this?).
I had a look at PF's Corpus Christi Liturgy; and thought how much older and unsteady he looked.
Is that why he has now decided to attack the Liturgy?
Could it be that he was unwilling to demolish Summorum Pontificum while Pope Benedict was still alive .... but now he realises it's too risky to wait much longer?
Equally possible, if we try to assume the best of the Holy Father, is that, as he grows older, certain of his subordinates grow bolder and take a longer leash. I can't imagine the difficulty even a vigorous, young Pontiff must have trying to circumvent his minders, viziers and Sir Humphreys in order to form his own assessment of what is actually happening in the Church and under his own nose.
ReplyDeleteThere was a point some years ago when the chief progressives realised Pope Francis was not nearly as handy with the rubber stamp as they wanted; surely it is quite natural that they should wait for his arm to be sufficiently atrophied that they can operate the stamp themselves?
In whatever case, let us pray for him unceasingly!
at the risk of sin, I pray it is very short.
ReplyDeleteOnce a participant in but now an observer of the implosion of the Church of Rome (along with all the West), I was onto Bergoglio’s game within a month of his accession in 2013.
ReplyDeleteHe ordered a reluctant Swiss Guard to abandon his post outside his bedroom one night, to sit and have a snack with him. An early scene in the gruesomely long-running Simple Humble Jorge play.
A man who knows his own duty respects another man doing his.
Bergoglio, being a performance artist, needed to star in his own version of Papa Bountiful to the proletariat.
The Swiss Guards are not hapless conscripts but voluntary and proud professionals. Bergoglio’s “touching” gesture of “fraternity,” forced, fraudulent and disrespectful, revealed who he was. And is.
Maybe the other [ex]pope will make a comeback, call himself Benedict XVI Part 2? Or Benedict Redux? He could brand identify with a byline: Benedict Unleashed: The Return of God's Rottweiler. I'd make me watch it again anyway.
ReplyDeleteTime is indeed short for those of us living in the biblical time zone -seventy years and for those who are strong eighty. I recommend a listen to Time Wears Awa sung by Emily Smith ( on You Tube). Time will indeed wear awa the magisterium of Pope Francis. Deo Gratias.
ReplyDeleteDear Father. What follows is a cut+ paste from your former countryman John Derbyshire and it refers to Mr. Enich Powell, whom leftists today fairly dismiss as an idiot:
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Imprimis: Shocker of the week, to me, was the announcement by Princeton University that Classics majors at Princeton will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin.
How far we have fallen! I'll just quote here from Simon Heffer's biography of Enoch Powell, every British patriot's favorite politician. Powell was born in June 1912, so at the opening of this quote he is just 17 years old. Quote:
In 1929, having passed the Higher School Certificate with distinction in Latin, Greek, and Ancient History, Powell won the school's Lee Divinity Prize for an essay on the New Testament: he went into the examination having memorised, in Greek, the whole of St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.
End quote.
Powell then went up to Trinity College, Cambridge.
The population of the U.K. in 1929 was around 46 million. The U.S.A.'s current population is about seven times that; so on a proportional basis, all else equal, we should be able to graduate at least seven high school students with Enoch Powell's level of ability and self-discipline.
If we do, where will they go to continue their studies? Obviously not to Princeton.
May I respond to Fr. Hunwicke’s “Is Time Short?” and to his question: “Could it be that he was unwilling to demolish Summorum Pontificum while Pope Benedict was still alive .... but now he realises it's too risky to wait much longer?”
ReplyDeleteTime may or may not be short for Bergoglio and Ratzinger, but I bet Pope Francis will not easily burn the Summorum Pontificum bridge that Benedict XVI built artfully from west to east. If the “pope emeritus” succeeds temporarily in his final opus: ‘One Pope, Two Persons’ it’s due to the phenomena of estrangements now hard pressed en masse in Vatican II’s vise grip. On the premise that two heads, and two mouths, are better than one in swallowing the Roman Catholic Church into one acidic stomach of denominational governance, but not minus the older form of the Latin rite, I offer: that only ‘One God, Three Persons’ knows for sure what’s to be or not to be. Hope springs eternal and is never short in time.
Time for the destruction of the Faith and the liturgy is not short: it is proceeding apace, with diabolical and incremental exactitude---and Papa Bergoglio may be grossly inept at many things, but he is an excellent time-keeper.
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