2 September 2019

Exactly which periphery?

I read a suggestion that the the most recently announced batch of newcardinals again privileges the "peripheries".

I then read through the CVs of these people. "Peripheries?", I wondered. These are men  of the machine, company men, men whose talents were spotted and fostered; collectors of doctorates, people who have been heads of this and vice-rectors of that; who made their ways through the traditional cursus honorum of those recognised as high-fliers. Favoured and now successful members of the clerical and clericalist oligarchy which is the Church's real problem.

I'm not impressed. I see the real peripheries as those who, since the Modernist rebellion which followed the Council, resisted error and fostered orthodoxy and decency within the Church. Men who have suffered persecution or at least uncomfortable discouragement.

Where, in that list, does the Society of S Pius X appear? Which members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate have been raised to the Purple? Nichols and Weinandy, where ... apart from being on our library shelves ... are they? Why does Kazakhstan not merit a Cardinal?

16 comments:

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Father. The chosen ones illustrate the strengthening chances the SSPX will become a Neo-Orthodox Communion that, if it already hasn't, becomes inured to the idea of existence without a Pope and we know that schism inevitably leads to heresy.

Lord have mercy.

The Body of Christ has already suffered enough with their absence because just as spiritual weirdness weakens the Body of Christ the possession of the weltanschuung of Tradition strengthens The Body of Christ.

GOR said...

Looking at the list and recalling the recent appointments to sinecures of Monsignors Dario ViganĂ² (the other one), Gustavo Zanchetta, Peter Tebarz-van-Elst and Juan Barros, one is reminded of the political term: “Jobs for the Boys”

The Casa Santa Marta may need an extension!

Long-Skirts said...

THE
REAL
GOOD
NEWS

The Good News is…
In fear and joy
That apprentices are
Still altar boys.

And Tabernacles on
Sacrificial altar
Rebound the sounds
Of David’s Psalter.

The entire year
Our missals hold
Celebrating cerebrally
The new and the old.

Sarcophagus seasons
Of abstinence and fast
Absolves the flesh
Buries sins past.

And liturgy’s vernacular
Constantly feigned
Pales ‘fore Precambrian
Death’s Latin had reigned.

For truth nails eternal
In Catholicity
Through minutes of centuries’
Mediocrity

Merci Marcel & all true Priests on the real periphery

Mike Lutz said...

And, in the U.S. of A., why don't we have a Cardinal Chaput as the Archbishop of Philadelphia?

Vox Cantoris said...

Thank you for this. So precise and relevant to the situation.

God bless you.

coradcorloquitur said...

Personnel is policy---and here we have, as clear as day light the seemingly irreversible program of the heretics. Why, one must wonder, did not Benedict XVI appoint as aggressively men of sound orthodoxy to the College of Cardinals when he could, while pope, and instead gave us bland non-entities (or worse) like Dolan of New York, men of accommodationist profiles and dubious commitment to orthodoxy. These questions must be asked, at least, and I ask them in the spirit of personal affection for Benedict, who is, I am convinced, a good man who loves the Church. But why the timidity in the face of the Modernist wolf? Why the apparent cowardice? Why the lack of concern for Christ's little flock, those who respect tradition and love orthodoxy, now almost totally abandoned to the wolves who will devour them without a hint of remorse. Why indeed?

Donna Bethell said...

Yes, company men, and perhaps even some cryptomuslims.

Mark said...

What coradcorloquitur said.

The papacies of John Paul II and Benedict presented the opportunity to appoint only robustly orthodox men to the College of Cardinals. That opportunity was not taken. And now Francis is stacking the College with LibChurchers.

Draw your own conclusions about the future of the Roman Catholic Church.

Dan Hayes said...

It's long time past to perform a thorough analysis of Bergoglio's Buenos Aires activities. In other words, constructive muckraking! There seems to have been deep currents of aberrant behavior that should be brought to light! Such a study might serve as a due diligence wake-up call for those voting in the next Papal Conclave! Otherwise the voters will again act willy-nilly with disastrous results once again.

Fr. David Evans said...

I cannot share the dismal opinion of 'men like Dolan'. Once the dictator is no more: the bad who have hidden their badness in the skirts of the Dictator have always had their badness revealed. Those who 'kept their powder dry', have ever revealed their true commitment and loyalty:"And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."
Luke 16:8, KJV .

Victor said...

Because - unlike the liberals - Benedick XVI and John Paul II wanted to keep the Church together and not enforce a certain outcome. Because - unlike the liberals - they believe in the Holy Spirit guiding the Church.

Fr PJM said...

"Robustly orthodox": Lord grant us many, holy priests who are robustly orthodox and proactively antimodernist!

Pulex said...

@ABS: Whatever one thinks of the choices SSPX made in 70s-80s, during the reign of Francis they are the ones who actually defend him against charges of heresy or claims of falling from office. Remember that they called such moves unhelpful if not downright wrong. The Dubay document also earned a rather mild critique by them. Of course, not because they think that Francis is alright, but that the real problems started decades earlier, and thus Francis is just more of the same. This makes me to think that they will not be overly exercised by the newest batch of cardinals.

This brings me also to Mark's comment. Perhaps it was the orthodoxy of John Paul II and Benedict XVI which was not entirely "robust" (apart from family and bioethics issues) that lead to their problematic episcopal appointments.

Dorota Mosiewicz-Patalas said...

Will I be called as judgmental and simple-minded, if I state - simply - that "the boys" and their leader alike are not Catholic, according to our Catechism? Anyone who knowingly rejects any part of Catholic teaching, is separating himself from the Church. None of these people has ever taken a stance regarding the alleged "movement of the Spirit" which - as T. Rosica has stated - makes this papacy unique, for it causes Jorge Bergoglio to change the doctrines of the Church, as well as the Holy Word of God itself! But we know that those who change the doctrines (and the Word of God, of course, which our Lord Jesus Christ forbid us to attempt to do) are not Catholic.
I used to comment on blogs a lot, hoping that I might have arrived at understandings which could potentially help others expand theirs. At this time it seems that the vast majority of Catholics who care to know, do know that we have a heretical pope determined to change the Church and her teaching - irreversibly (his boys have expressed this intent in his name). We know that apart from a small number of priests and less than a handful of Cardinals (who are being cruelly disciplined and omitted in promotions by their superiors and the pope), there are no Catholic shepherds in the Church. We know that the Amazonian Synod is going to make it abundantly clear for those, who still refuse to see and those who can't wait to dialogue and learn from shamans.

coradcorloquitur said...

Victor above says both John Paul II and Benedict just wanted to keep the Church together and trusted the Holy Ghost in guiding the Church. Neither point has anything what-so-ever to do with the proper use of proven record, personal histories, and confirmed behavior in the selection of bishops and cardinals. It is reckless to suggest that the appointment of men of questionable faith or virtue (some specifically known to the the pope as unsuitable, as in the case of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, about whom the Superior General of the Jesuits at the time, Father Hans Kolvenbach, and other Argentinian hierarchs warned the pope) is a sign of holy trust in the Holy Ghost. One would think that if ecclesial unity and fruitful cooperation with the Holy Ghost are desired, then all effort to appoint known orthodox and proven bishops would be the best and really only approach. Instead, the bad appointments of both John Paul and Benedict (and they are many) speak of administrative laziness or a culpable naivete reprehensible in the man charged with feeding (with truth and orthodoxy and reverent worship) the flock of Christ by Christ Himself. The selection of bishops is not an act, per se, of the Holy Ghost, as the long and sad history of unworthy prelates proves beyond a shadow of a doubt---so let us stop the easy practice of implying that we can act imprudently if we just trust the Holy Ghost; it makes no rational sense and borders on a kind of blasphemous fideism, especially in light of the miscreant and at times perfidious hierarchy with which we are saddled today in many parts of the Church. The Holy Ghost guides and protects but does not force human actions or prevent even popes from acting stupidly and recklessly or even malevolently. Why else would Holy Writ ask rhetorically: Will the Lord find any faith on earth when He returns? As for securing unity for the Church: need we do more than just look around to see a catastrophically divided Church---the very fruit of bad, indifferent, or unworthy episcopal appointments. If we, lay and clerical Catholics alike, are to take even a baby step in the direction of a restoration of the Church and the Faith it is imperative to cease defending the indefensible.

coradcorloquitur said...

The sterling and undiluted truth, Dorota!