The Times includes, among its Book Reviews on Saturdays, a suggestion about a book which is no longer hot-off-the-Press but is well worth a reread.
In this spirit, I offer a book by the learned former Official Historian of the Knights of Malta, the acute and lucid Henry Sire [pronounced Seer].
'Former' because, under this Parrhesia pontificate, he was, unaccountably, expelled from the Order.
The Dictator Pope The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy. Regnery Publishing.
A taster:
"Since Father Bergoglio, as a Jesuit, would need a dispensation to be appointed [bishop], it was necessary to obtain a report from his order, for which Cardinal Quarracino applied in 1991. It was provided by the Jesuit general, and it represents the most damning character study of Jorge Bergoglio composed by anyone before his election as pope. The text of the report has never been made public, but the following account is given by a priest who had access to it before it disappeared from the Jesuit archive: Father Kolvenbach accused Bergoglio of a series of defects, ranging from habitual use of vulgar language to deviousness, disobedience concealed under a mask of humility, and lack of psychological balance; with a view to his suitability as a future bishop, the report pointed out that he had been a divisive figure as provincial of his own order. ..."
I think that is what is called hearsay (I saw this in a document which you cannot see)
ReplyDeleteCardinal Quarracino became a suffragan bishop
in the province of Buenos Aires in 1962, so he would have had his own knowledge of Fr. Bergoglio before consecrating him in 1992.
Dear Reverend Fr. Hunwicke.
ReplyDeleteNo Comment.
in Domino
Zephyrinus.
It seems to me that Fr. Kolvenbach knew his man! How often PF has manifested those character defects, mutatis mutandis! I think especially of disobedience under the mask of humility. How often he has betrayed or perverted the magisterium under the veneer of humility or charity!
ReplyDeleteI would like to quote myself: dissocial (or also called anti-social) personality disorder.
ReplyDeleteCompared with some of the out-and-out scoundrels who have been pope in Catholic history, PF is still OK. Not a great pope, nor even a good one, but a long, long way from being the worst. The time on earth remaining to him cannot be very long, and I think we will be getting a new pope fairly soon. What might be interesting is if Benedict XVI be still alive when PF dies. I have hopes that the next conclave might, as Americans might put it, throw out a real curve-ball in their choice of new pope, such as an obscure abbot from a not widely known monastery well off the beaten track. We don't really need another career Vatican insider or academic theologian in the Chair of Peter.
ReplyDeletePardon the length. From my blog in April 2013.
ReplyDeleteAbout the story of newly "installed" Bergoglio forcing his Swiss Guard protector to leave his post so he could have him sit down and serve him jam and coffee. Widely regarded as a kind and heart-warming gesture.
"Perhaps this is a therapist's bias, but my response is to notice, once again, his self-assertion, his infantilization of the other to serve his position of parental benevolence, and his use of his power make it look as if he doesn't have any (although here, he had to use it to create the momentary illusion of equal brotherhood.)
Rather than letting the Swiss Guard do his duty, a livelihood he volunteered for, trained for and which is an honor; rather than honoring the man as another man who does his duty and thanking him for it, Francis has to alter the situation to suit his personal compulsions about benevolence and fraternity, so that he can be the star of yet another theatrical rule-breaking performance in which he is the star. The Guard is not part of that great crowd of "the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized" that Francis is always talking about. But that does not suit His Holiness' script.
If you honor a soldier for being a soldier, for doing his duty, you recognize him for who he is, one man honoring another. But Francis has to turn him into a needy, put-upon someone, some poor tired peasant conscript upon whom he can bestow his priestly benevolence. He takes away the man's pride in himself for performing his task so that he can mother him as if he were a dependent child.
And of course he uses his personal hierarchical power to denigrate the power of other men --the captain-- and play this game of faux-equals.
Color me continuingly unimpressed."
Yes, I agree with OreamnosAmericanus on this.
ReplyDeleteI was a soldier for a long time, a private, a staff sergeant, and an officer. What he has said is true.
OreamnosAmericanus has hit the nail on the head: a devious showman, condescending and manipulative, always scheming to promote his agenda and who uses time and again his office to destroy Catholic Faith and morals. Yet, by maintaining that Francis is not among the worst popes, he is lumped by some on this very blog in a false equivalency with corrupt popes, perhaps like the Borgias, who had the basic decency not to subvert the Faith entrusted to them for the care of souls---personal moral corruption notwithstanding. And that Bergoglio subverts the Faith should be indisputable before the evidence of seven-plus bitter years of documented betrayals. If the truthful evidence disturbs some, then they should take their grievance against truth to Him Who told us He was the Truth, the Way, and the Life. The Truth Incarnate cannot be offended by observable truth, even when His Vicar is involved. But He may be offended by obfuscation.
ReplyDelete