10 November 2015

Pope Francis

Today's Bolletino contains addresses which for the most part simply repeat what we have so often heard from our Holy Father about whom he likes and whom he very deeply dislikes. Familiar Bergoglian hate-words such as Pelagian and Gnostic make yet another weary appearance. But there is, at one or two points, a profound and distinct anti-intellectualism, which I have not noticed before. I find this worrying. Anti-intellectualism is a stance people very often adopt when they propose to do something irrational.

Some people may find this extract quite funny. I resist the temptation to comment.
"May your words be simple, so that everyone can understand, rather than long homilies."

I'm still resisting hard ...

22 comments:

bedwere said...

Cognitive dissonance?

Ferrara said...

He has been conducting the same tiresome, pseudo-intellectual jeremiad for almost three years now. There seems to be no operative capacity for internal self-auditing before speaking. I don't think the annals of the papacy contain another example of such a combination of towering megalomania with not all that much going on upstairs. (His themes suggest someone who hasn't read any serious book since the 1970s). Clearly the most aggressive mediocrity ever to occupy the Chair of Peter.

Zephyrinus said...

Qué ?

Patrick Sheridan said...

"I think that this writing down, flattening, Bible-in-basic-English attitude is responsible for the fact that so many older children and younger people have little respect and no love for words, and very limited vocabularies - and alas! little desire left (even when they had the gift which has been stultified) to refine and enlarge them." J.R.R Tolkien, 1961.

Donna Bethell said...

OK, Father, I will not even aspire to anything like your self-discipline: both those homilies look pretty long to me!

Donna Bethell said...

The redoubtable Edward Pentin has provided an English report on what the Pope said in Florence today. God help us.
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pope-conservatism-and-fundamentalism-are-useless-in-seeking-solutions-to-ev/#ixzz3r7bks2XT.

Kathleen1031 said...

That sounds so humble.

Liam Ronan said...

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Leo Wong said...

I wish the Holy Father would identify "whom he very deeply dislikes," so that the accused persons could be identified and defend themselves.

mark wauck said...

"a profound and distinct anti-intellectualism, which I have not noticed before."

Two points:

1) Actually, the anti-intellectualism has been a consistent theme throughout his ... pontificating. It's often framed in terms of theory v. action, with theory always coming out on the short end of things. But if you google or, as I do, startpage, "pope francis anti intellectual" you'll find ample material to document this aspect. Whenever I see stuff like this I always think of Fr Brown's explanation to Flambeau at the end of "The Blue Cross": ‘You attacked reason. It’s bad theology.'

2) Chris Ferrara has a long article today that's well worth reading: The Synod on the Family: Business Model for the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’. The great merit of the article, IMO, is that he makes it very clear that there is no reason to be surprised at what is happening currently, that the trajectory has been fairly consistent for decades now.

kiwiinamerica said...

For me the issue is simple; charity or rather, a lack therof. His words so often lack charity. Much of his perjorative prose barely rises above the level of internet combox rhetoric. And of course, there are always the ubiquitous "straw men".

Where are all these Pelagians and Pharisees he's always ranting about?

Richard Duncan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Saint Bede Studio said...

Pope Francis acts as a lesson on how very ugly and unbecoming it is to sneer at those you don't agree with. We have come to expect politicians to use their office, with its opportunities for public speaking and sound-bytes, to behave in such a way; but such behaviour in the Successor of Saint Peter can only be deemed unworthy.

Unknown said...

True.

Fr. Michael LaRue said...

I post this as of possible interest, nor will I be dismayed if it proves not to meet the limits within which this weblog operates: http://southernhighchurch.blogspot.com/2015/11/pope-francis-vs-christian-humanism.html

Nicolas Bellord said...

Michael LaRue: Thank for an interesting analysis from a non-Catholic. It is also worth reading Cardinal Sarah's "God or Nothing" in particular his chapter on "Issues in the postmodern world".

The more I read of Pope Francis the more I fail to understand what on earth he is talking about. Cardinal Sarah is a wonderful antidote.

bill said...

It appears that His Holiness is attempting something half-Newmanian.

Think Tamworth Reading Room: "Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude; first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism. Tell men to gain notions of a Creator from His works, and, if they were to set about it (which nobody does), they would be jaded and wearied by the labyrinth they were tracing. Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences...Life is for action."

And yet, if appears that he's missing the University Sermons: "Nothing would be more theoretical and unreal than to suppose that true Faith cannot exist except when moulded upon a Creed, and based upon Evidence; yet nothing would indicate a more shallow philosophy than to say that it ought carefully to be disjoined from dogmatic and argumentative statements. To assert the latter is to discard the science of theology from the service of Religion; to assert the former, is to maintain that every child, every peasant, must be a theologian. Faith cannot exist without grounds or without an object; but it does not follow that all who have faith should recognize, and be able to state what they believe, and why."

True Christian Humanisim is nothing but the confluence of the two. All the various arts, sciences, et. al, submitted to the God-man by those few so gifted enlarges and increases, strengthens and bolsters, the faith. As Newman concludes: "The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us." True humanism, because it is based on the true human, Christ Jesus, means nothing less than the convergence of the few and the many.

The Holy Father does appear to understand false humanism, but doesn't seem to offer an authentic account. Maybe somewhere else.

Lepanto said...

The Pope was clearly joking. No-one outside a lunatic asylum or Hollywood has the lack of self-awareness which that remark would indicate. I laughed with him but certainly not at him. Tell us another!

Anonymous said...

bi polar manic anyone? I have no intention of judging had a great deal experience with bi-polarism and cognitive dissonance

Anonymous said...

looking at all these heresies and accusations. The Church is probably way down the highway to full blown arianism, Separating the Divinity of the word from The Man who was the Shepherd is very close to some kind of pastoral heresy???

Anonymous said...

Zephyrinus: Qué ?

Ah, Pope Manuel I!

Anonymous said...

Reminds me a bit of Dora's anti-intellectualism in David Copperfield:

«'No, no! please!' cried Dora, with a kiss, 'don't be a naughty Blue Beard! Don't be serious!'
'My precious wife,' said I, 'we must be serious sometimes. Come! Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear'; what a little hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! 'You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. Now, is it?'
'N-n-no!' replied Dora, faintly.
'My love, how you tremble!'
'Because I KNOW you're going to scold me,' exclaimed Dora, in a piteous voice.
'My sweet, I am only going to reason.'
'Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!' exclaimed Dora, in despair. 'I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!'
I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her curls from side to side, and said, 'You cruel, cruel boy!' so many times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again.
'Dora, my darling!'
'No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!' returned Dora.»