First Things: Cloward-Piven Goes to Rome

 You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free.

                           Paul Simon, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover

The pope, too, has a pen and a phone. Has Francis’ motu proprio trumped the Synod? Or handicapped conservatives? Hard to say. But one thing now is certain: Marriage is indissoluble except when it is not. Put another way, indissolubility is revealed to be more soluble than we had previously understood.

Anonymous. Illustrated Police News (19th C.). British Library Board.

Analyses of this latest twist of the mercy spanner have been piling up. Papal apologists offer their expected apologias; critics beg to differ. Among those with differences are some very serious, informed voices. Some insist nothing has changed; neater and kinder is all. Others discern a material shift: The language of endurance—until death do us part—still stands but the substance can be had gluten-free. Annulments are on track to be dispatched in short order; even, according to some commentators, in cases where one spouse contests. And a slam dunk is anticipated if both parties want out. Craft the right narrative, and your marriage never existed.

Read more at First Things >>

Pat Buchanan: US and Catholicism in Crisis

By Patrick J. Buchanan

During the 1950s, the twin pillars of worldwide anti-communism were Dwight Eisenhower's America and the Roman Catholic Church of Pope Pius XII.

During the 1980s, the last decade of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan and the Polish pope, John Paul II, were the pillars of resistance.

When Pope Francis arrives in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, the country he enters will be a very different one from Eisenhower's America or Reagan's America. And Catholics will be welcoming a new kind of pope.

In America 2015, homosexuality, abortion on demand and same-sex marriage — shameful crimes in Ike's America, mortal sins in the catechism of Pius XII — have become constitutional rights.

These represent the values that define Barack Obama's America, the values our officials defend at the United Nations, the values we preach to the world.

Philadelphia Hotels Slashing Prices for Pope's Visit

This is what happens when you visit a country and refuse to speak the native language; you attack the economic system as "unfettered capitalism," a system that has given the broadest numbers the highest standard of living in the world; you encourage disregard for your host country's sovereignty, laws and borders; you foment controversy and division over the immutable doctrines of your Church; you endorse the "sustainable development goals" of the Marxist UN that call for decimating the world's population; you embrace the junk science of radical leftists and charlatans who seek power and money; and the followers of your Church begin to see you as lacking all authority because you, like the President you have come to embrace, are an enemy of that which you purport to lead.

Philadelphia hotels slashing prices for pope's visit

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia's hotel industry said Friday there's still plenty of room at the inn for Pope Francis' visit this month.

About 3,000 of the 11,200 rooms in the city's downtown were still available two weeks away from the pontiff's Sept. 26 arrival, said Ed Grose, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association.

Hotels were slashing rates, skipping minimum stay requirements and tossing in extras like subway tokens and bags full of Philadelphia-centric snacks to lure guests for the two-day visit.

Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer >> 

Conservative Dissent is Brewing Inside the Vatican

Thanks be to God that faithful churchmen are beginning to address the crisis fomented by this disastrous, destructive pontificate.  Lord, in your mercy, send us a conclave.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, left, stands by Pope Francis saluting bishops, at the end of weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sept. 2, 2015. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

VATICAN CITY — On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, the Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his elaborately upholstered armchair and appeared to issue a warning to Pope Francis.

A staunch conservative and Vatican bureaucrat, Burke had been demoted by the pope a few months earlier, but it did not take the fight out of him. Francis had been backing a more inclusive era, giving space to progressive voices on divorced Catholics as well as gays and lesbians. In front of the camera, Burke said he would “resist” liberal changes — and seemed to caution Francis about the limits of his authority. “One must be very attentive regarding the power of the pope,” Burke told the French news crew.

Papal power, Burke warned, “is not absolute.” He added, “The pope does not have the power to change teaching [or] doctrine.”

Burke’s words belied a growing sense of alarm among strict conservatives, exposing what is fast emerging as a culture war over Francis’s papacy and the powerful hierarchy that governs the Roman Catholic Church.

Read more at The Washington Post >>

Pope to Say D.C. Mass in Spanish in Bow to 'Hispanic Population'

The decision by Pope Francis to say his Washington, D.C. Mass in Spanish is the latest outrage in a Papacy marked by missteps, misstatements and confusion bordering on apostasy.  His expressed but denied wish to cross into the United States from Mexico the way millions of illegal aliens have done is rude and offensive and should be condemned by all Americans.

As a guest in the United States, Jorge Bergoglio should respect the fact that this is an English-speaking nation, as are a majority of American Catholics.  As the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Vicar of Christ, he should butt out of political issues like U.S. immigration policy and the UN Millenium Development Goals.   These are policy matters that are appropriate to the purview of laymen, and on which laymen may legitimately disagree.  What other nation has open borders?  Has the Vatican opened its doors to Europe's massive influx of Middle Eastern and Muslim refugees?

True Popes focus on the freedom, dignity, and most importantly, the salvation of souls, not junk science and the Democrat Party's Marxist agenda.

One cannot imagine this Pope's great and holy predecessors, Saint Pope John Paul II  or the beloved Benedict XVI, disrespecting their host nations by saying Mass in the language of illegal, foreign invaders.  We have been reluctant to publicly criticize this disastrous and destructive pontificate, but this is a step too far.  His is a political and ideological agenda we will never condone or support.  We pray that God, in His mercy, will send the Church a conclave.  In the meantime, American Catholics should consider the Peter's Pence and other collections as being for Pesos only.

If you share our outrage and disgust at this latest affront, please consider sharing your views with the Pope's official representative to the United States, the Papal Nuncio at nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org.

 

Half a Million People Sign Petition Urging Francis to Reinforce Church Teaching on Marriage at Synod

What a great tragedy and sadness it is when the Body of Christ must shepherd a rogue and heretical Pope.

Pope Francis at last October's extraordinary synod (CNS)

Five cardinals are among the signatories to a petition organised by Catholic student association TFP Student Action

More than 500,000 people, including five cardinals, have signed a petition asking Pope Francis to reinforce Church teaching on marriage and the family at the synod of bishops in October.

The petition, launched by Catholic student association TFP Student Action and backed by 25 pro-family groups around the world, was posted on the organisation’s site in late January.

It has since been signed by five cardinals, 117 bishops and hundreds of civil leaders, in addition to the thousands of university students it was aimed at.

The cardinals who are signatories are Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Jorge Medina of Chile, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of the Philippines, Cardinal Alexandre José Maria dos Santos, Mozambique, and Cardinal Jānis Pujats of Latvia.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

Pope at Odds with the Church's Bottom Line

There has been a great deal of talk recently from Juan Perón's Pope about the evil of "unfettered capitalism."  Where that exists, or has existed in at least a century, we'd like someone to tell us.  In any event, it appears the Pope is now at odds with the Church's own bottom line.  Reuters reports:

Reuters/Reuters - Pope Francis gestures as he talks during a special audience with members of "Eucharist Youth Movement" in Paul VI hall at the Vatican, in this August 7, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Tony Gentile/Files

BOSTON (Reuters) - Pope Francis heartened environmentalists around the world in June when he urged immediate action to save the planet from the effects of climate change, declaring that the use of "highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be progressively replaced without delay." 

But some of the largest American Catholic organizations have millions of dollars invested in energy companies, from hydraulic fracturing firms to oil sands producers, according to their own disclosures, through many portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries.

This discrepancy between the church's leadership and its financial activities in the United States has prompted at least one significant review of investments. The Archdiocese of Chicago, America's third largest by Catholic population, told Reuters it will reexamine its more than $100 million worth of fossil fuel investments.

Read more at Reuters >>

Cardinal George Pell Takes a Swing at Pope Francis’ Environmental Encyclical

The Vatican's financial chief, Cardinal George Pell, has taken the unusual step of criticizing Pope Francis' groundbreaking environmental encyclical. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

From Religion News Service

By Rosie Scammell 

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s financial chief, Cardinal George Pell, has taken the unusual step of criticizing Pope Francis’ groundbreaking environmental encyclical, arguing the Catholic Church has “no particular expertise in science.”

Nearly 18 months after Pell was brought to the Vatican by Pope Francis and given a mandate to reform the city-state’s banking affairs, the Australian cardinal gave an interview to the Financial Times, whacking his boss’ landmark document.

“It’s got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful,” he said. “But the Church has no particular expertise in science …. the Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science,” Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday.

In the papal letter, released last month, Francis called for global action on climate change and criticized world leaders for not addressing the issue urgently enough. While the pope won praise from environmental activists, others have argued the pope should not be wading into the political and scientific debate.

Until now, Pell had remained quiet on the contents of the encyclical, despite gaining a reputation in Australia as a climate change denier. In 2011, he clashed with the then-head of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Ayers, who said Pell was “misled” in his climate change views.

Despite the cardinal’s criticism of the pope’s environmental stance, Pell noted the encyclical had been “very well received” and said Francis had “beautifully set out our obligations to future generations and our obligations to the environment.”

Since the document’s release, the Vatican has hosted a high-level meeting on the environment, while Francis has taken his message on the road throughout Latin America.

The Pope Joins the EU in a Sad World of Make-Believe

There are two great acts of political make-believe in our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on our lives 

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives for a general audience at St Peter's square at the Vatican Photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

What has a Papal Encyclical calling on the world to end its use of fossil fuels and to pray to God for the success of the global “climate summit” in December got in common with the Greek euro crisis, the ominous rift between the West and Russia, and the shambles Europe is making over the desperation of African and Syrian refugees to find safety this side of the Mediterranean? They are all different aspects of the two greatest acts of political make-believe of our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on all our lives.

When future historians come to look back on our age, few things will puzzle them more than the extent to which our politics became so dominated and bedevilled by two belief-systems, each based on an obsessive attempt to force into being an immensely complicated political construct which defied economic, psychological and scientific reality.

One of these was the peculiar way in which Europe’s politicians, with full support from the US, had set out to unite their continent under a form of supra-national government unlike anything the world had seen before. The other was the way those same politicians fell for the idea not just that human activities were disastrously changing Earth’s climate, but that by taking the most drastic measures they could somehow change it back again.  

Read more at TheTelegraph >>

Professor Robert George Urges Pope to Support Archbishop Cordileone

Princeton Professor Robert George has written an open letter to Pope Francis urging that he show "quiet support" for embattled San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.  The Archbishop has been severely criticized for insisting that the Catholic schools of his Archdiocese bear witness to the moral teachings of the faith.  Professor George's letter, published in First Things, follows:

Your Holiness:

I recall with pleasure and gratitude my visit to the Vatican in November and your moving address to our Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage. There, gathered with leaders of the world’s great religious traditions, East and West, you reaffirmed the Church’s doctrine of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife and spoke movingly of the right of every child “to grow up in a family with a father and mother.”

Here in the United States we are blessed with many bishops who join you in bearing witness to these profound and indispensable truths. Even in the face of social and economic pressure on them to yield or go silent, they boldly and joyously proclaim the Church’s teachings on marriage and chastity. None has been more fearless or ardent in upholding these beautiful and liberating teachings than Salvatore Cordileone, the Archbishop of San Francisco.

Faithful Catholics in his archdiocese and throughout our country have been edified by his labors—particularly those addressed to ensuring that the Catholic schools under his care teach and model fidelity to Catholic doctrine in all matters of faith and morals. Unsurprisingly, however, these labors have drawn the antagonism of many who despise the Church’s moral teachings, especially those concerning marriage and sexual morality.

This morning, a group of people published an open letter to you in a San Francisco newspaper urging you to remove Archbishop Cordileone from his office. They identify themselves as Catholics and plead with you to send them a new archbishop that will be true to what they describe as “our values.” But their values, unlike the values proclaimed and upheld by Archbishop Cordileone, are not the values of the Catholic faith. Their complaint against the Archbishop finally comes down to his refusal to bow down before the values of contemporary secularist sexual morality and gender ideology. For this, however, he should be applauded and encouraged, not condemned, much less ousted.

Be assured, Holy Father, that the “prominent Catholics,” as the media describes them, who call on you to remove Archbishop Cordileone do not speak for the faithful Catholics of San Francisco. Already, a movement has emerged to support and encourage the Archbishop. It is a movement of grateful Catholics—not “prominent” people—but ordinary men and women, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants from many lands. These men and women are grateful to have an archbishop who believes and teaches what the Church believes and teaches. They send their children to the diocesan schools because they desire for them an education imbued with a Christian spirit and shaped by the teachings of the Catholic faith. Their spirits have been lifted by Archbishop Cordileone’s tireless work to ensure that such an education is available to all who desire it.

With gratitude to God for your own witness and ministry, I humbly ask you to join those of us who are supporting and encouraging Archbishop Cordileone. It would be a wonderful thing for you quietly to let him know that he has your blessing, and that the insults and defamations he is experiencing as a result of his faithful apostolic work are a participation in the redemptive suffering of Jesus, who said: “anyone who would be my disciple must take up his cross and follow me.”

Sincerely yours in our beloved Savior,

Robert P. George

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University

Reformer of the Clergy? Pope Francis Fails His First Real Test

Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros

They still don’t get it.

With great fanfare and media fawning, Pope Francis appointed Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to head the new Vatican Child Protection Commission to protect children from clergy sex abuse. O’Malley said the new commission would advise the pope about the protection of children and the pastoral care of victims of abuse.

Among the members of the child protection commission, was a clergy sex abuse victim, and an array of lay members from the medical, political, academic and diplomatic arena, along with two Jesuits. There was no legal document, no formal mandate or structure assigned to the commission, leaving some to criticize the commission as mere “window dressing.”

The Pope assured Catholics that reform had finally arrived to the Vatican.

Read more at The Remnant >>

Francis and Political Illusion

In the cap and bells of Flip Wilson’s Church of What’s Happening Now, Pope Francis is readying an encyclical on climate change. He will address the world’s latest mutation of the grail quest: human ecology. Abandoning nuance for apocalyptic alarmism (“If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.”), Francis has signaled the tenor of his utterance.

Read more at First Things >>

The Remnant's (and Our) Man of the Year

The following is an editorial from The Remnant, with which we regretfully, but wholeheartedly, agree.

The title Man of the Year, bestowed by the mass media on a gender-neutral “Person of the Year,” reflects the impact a public figure has had on world events during the year preceding. Thus it was quite understandable, even predictable, that Time, the world’s leading news magazine, and The Advocate, the world’s most prominent homosexualist publication, would both name Pope Francis “Person of the Year” for 2013.

The world understands, even if most Catholics have forgotten, that the Catholic Church is the last barrier against the terminal civilizational apostasy for which the powers that be have been laboring for almost three centuries. In the crowd-pleasing words, gestures and publicity stunts Pope Francis provides almost daily, which the media promptly trumpet to the detriment of his predecessors and the Church’s image, the makers of world opinion see their last best chance to take the Church out of commission once and for all.  The media recognize that this Pope, whatever his intentions, speaks as if he were determined to complete, per impossible, the ecclesial auto-demolition lamented too late by Paul VI in the midst of the Second Vatican Council’s catastrophically foolish “opening to the world.” 

From the traditional Catholic perspective of this newspaper, however, Pope Francis is Man of the Year for a different reason: the unintended consequences of his increasingly alarming pontificate. That is, the “Francis effect” is finally awakening many Catholics outside traditionalist circles to the awful reality of the post-conciliar revolution in the Church, bringing them face-to-face with a crisis the “normalists” can no longer conceal behind their usual emasculating interpretations of events. This awakening is typified by the mordant commentary of one rightly appalled Catholic, a convert and novelist, in light of Francis’s upcoming encyclical on “climate change,” already being hailed by the media as the next advance for “the Francis revolution.” Under the title “I Am Concerned“ she writes:

I regret that our current Holy Father speaks so strongly on topics about which no one expects him to know any more than anyone else. As far as his popular image is concerned, I don’t really care what color shoes he wears, what sort of car he goes about in, or where he chooses to set up housekeeping… Nothing is more seductive than flattery and applause, especially from a fickle and sensation-hungry press, and nothing is more fatal to our souls than vanity…. I suppose ‘encyclicals’ on other subjects can be written anywhere, provided one wears shoes of a politically correct color.

As these sentiments would suggest, Francis’s most significant impact is turning out to be, not what the world applauds, but his inadvertent demonstration that the revolution has gone too far, that it is time to return to the point where the Church’s human element strayed from the path of Tradition to pursue an imaginary “renewal,” and that nothing is more urgent now than a recovery of everything that was abandoned during a ruinous experiment in novelty Francis seems determined to pursue to the bitter end according to the “dream” enunciated in his personal manifesto, Evangelii Gaudium:

I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. 

It is this boundless progressivism, seemingly unhampered by any reverence for what the Church has handed down in her “ways of doing things” through the centuries, that accounts for the “Francis effect” which has earned him the world’s endless adulation.  In less than two years we have already witnessed these “achievements” of the Bergoglian papacy:

• an unprecedented disdain for traditional vestments, customs and protocols of the papacy, with the result that the media exalt Francis’s “humility” to the detriment of all his predecessors, including canonized saints who honored these traditions as due the sacrality of the office of Vicar of Christ;

• further ostentatious demonstrations of “humility,” always before the cameras (dining with Vatican employees in the cafeteria, “selfies” with members of the crowd, riding a bus to the annual retreat, carrying his own black bag on the chartered jet, etc.), which the media further exploit as an unfavorable reflection on previous Popes;

• perversion of the traditional Holy Thursday mandatum , commemorating the institution of the Priesthood and the Eucharist at the first Mass offered by Our Lord, by washing and kissing the feet of non-Catholics, including Muslim women, thus degrading a sacred tradition by subordinating it to his personal desire to display “humility” in a novel way;

• the infamous declaration “Who am I to judge?” respecting “gay persons” in the Catholic priesthood, creating the impression of an unprecedented new “openness” to “gay people” in the Church, which he has since done nothing to counter but on the contrary has continued to cultivate, as seen at the Synod on “the Family,” which he controlled;

• innumerable scandalously confusing and heterodox interviews and conversations with journalists, including the doctrinaire atheist Eugenio Scalfari, which the Vatican publishing house, with Francis’s approval, has recently published in book form, confounding all attempts by his apologists to argue that he was misquoted or misunderstood;

• a persistent abuse of Sacred Scripture during the daily “meditations” at Casa Santa Marta: Christ only “pretends” to be angry“ with His disciples, Mary might have wanted to say “Lies! I was cheated!” when her Son was crucified; the Pharisees were “rigorists” concerning marriage (when in fact Our Lord rebuked them for being lax); Matthew clung to his money when Christ called him (when in fact he followed immediately); the Gospel is merely a “reflection” on the “gestures” of Christ and the Church in their works of corporal mercy and the Church “does not give lectures on love, on mercy…”; Saint Paul declared “I boast only of my sins“ (when in fact he boasted only of his infirmities, not his offenses against God), and so on;

• constant public attacks on members of the faithful Francis accuses of “feel[ing] superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past,” of seeking “an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,” of having  an “ostentatious preoccupation for the liturgy, for doctrine and for the Church’s prestige,” and of exhibiting a “supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline [that] leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism”—thus rashly misjudging the motives of traditional Roman Catholics who practice the bimillenial Faith of their fathers;

• an open contempt for the Church’s traditional liturgy, which Francis dismisses as “a kind fashion” to which certain people are “addicted”;

• the brutal dismemberment of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate on account of its increasing attachment to the traditional Latin Mass and its “definite traditionalist drift,” and the targeting of the Sisters of the Immaculate for a similar fate under the guise of a completely unwarranted “Apostolic Visitation” conducted by modernist nuns;

• the warm embrace of Protestant ministers and televangelists as “brothers” Francis declares he is “not interested” in converting, even as they steal millions of sheep from the Catholic flock entrusted to him, as they have done throughout a Latin America that is less Catholic by the day;

• the astonishing declaration that it is  “sinning against Christ’s will” to focus on the Church’s doctrinal differences with Protestants because “our shared baptism is more important than our differences” —thus effectively discarding every teaching of the Magisterium and the Church’s infallible anathemas on the errors of Luther and the other Protestant sects ;
  
  
• a stubborn defense of Islam, contrary to the entire history of its persecution of Christians which continues today, including Francis’s declaration in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” —a claim he has absolutely no competence to make;

• a defense of Islam against the well-founded claim that it inherently promotes violence against “infidels”: “You just can’t say that, just as you can’t say that all Christians are fundamentalists. We have our share of them (fundamentalists). All religions have these little groups”—thus suggesting that Roman Catholic traditionalists or Protestant “Bible-thumpers” are on a par with Muslim fanatics who commit murder, rape and innumerable other acts of violence and persecution against Christians or routinely sentence them to death for “blasphemy” or “apostasy” according to the established juridical frameworks of Muslim countries;

• the invitation to a Muslim Imam to “pray for peace” in the Vatican gardens, who, quoting the Koran in Francis’s presence, called upon Allah to “grant us victory over the heathen/disbelieving/infidel” (i.e. non-Muslims), following which  there erupted violence of massive proportions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the savage Muslim persecution of Christians in various nations;

• the ridiculous “Soccer Game for Peace,” personally arranged by Francis, during which “gay pride” flags were on display and an obscenely dressed, gyrating Argentinian teenage pop diva sang John Lennon’s anthem Imagine, calling for an end to all religion, while a group of children surrounding her looked on adoringly;

• the prayer beside a Muslim Imam in the Blue Mosque at Istanbul at the very moment Christians were being hung, burned alive, decapitated, raped, enslaved and driven from their homes in Muslim nations, while the Imam with whom Francis prayed and his counterparts around the world refuse to condemn the atrocities perpetrated by Muslim fanatics;

• the failure to intervene to plead for the freedom of Mariam Ibraheem Ishag, the pregnant Catholic convert sentenced to death by the Islamic dictatorship of Sudan for “apostasy” from Islam, even though governments, religious leaders and human rights groups around the world militate d—successfully—for her release;

• silence and inaction in the face of written pleas fom Aisa Bibi, sentenced to death for “blasphemy” by the Islamic regime of Pakistan, whereas Pope Benedict XVI had publicly called for the dismissal of all charges against her and even the Russian Patriarch of the Orthodox Church recently issued a formal statement declaring that “our multimillion flock joins their voice to that of the great number of people throughout the world who advocate for saving the life of this Christian woman” and calling upon Pakistan’s president to grant her a pardon;

• the dogged promotion of the errors of Cardinal Walter Kasper, including his insane proposal to admit public adulterers to Holy Communion, which Francis himself permitted when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires;

• a Synod on “the Family” that quite predictably devolved into an attack on the family, including an “opening” to “gays” and public adulterers in the disgraceful midterm report Francis approved and had distributed to the press before the Synod Fathers had even seen it, prompting a rebellion by bishops and even cardinals against the Synod’s manipulation;

• the introduction of a “God of surprises” during a jeremiad against “so-called ‘traditionalists’” after the Synod Fathers had rejected the midterm report and failed to adopt language in the final report that also suggested an “opening” to “gays” and Holy Communion for public adulterers;

• retaining the rejected synodal texts for use in the proceedings at the 2015 Synod despite the Synod Fathers’ failure to approve them;

• meddling in international affairs to facilitate a disadvantageous  prisoner swap between the United States and the communist dictatorship of Cuba, which gained nothing for Cuba’s persecuted Catholics, who at this very moment are suffering under a government crackdown on Christians, but did allow Barack Obama to declare a normalization of relations with Cuba for which both he and the dictator Raul Castro publicly thanked Francis;

• such small but telling gestures as wearing a clown nose, jumping up to catch a baseball tossed at him from the crowd (causing his skull cap to fly off), and the placement of World Youth Day beach ball on the historic Marian altar in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major immediately next to the tabernacle (before which Francis made no gesture of reverence), held in place with a World Youth Day T-shirt because the beach ball kept rolling away;

• “the Francis revolution” in general, as reflected in his expressed “fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe…”

For these and innumerable other like reasons, Pope Francis is The Remnant newspaper’s 2014 Man of the Year. Although he certainly did not intend this, Francis is showing the Catholic world the final outcome of a trajectory that began with the Council’s problematical texts—the likes of which no ecumenical council had ever propounded—and proceeded with the destruction of the Roman Rite, the ecclesial paralysis caused by the viruses of  “ecumenism,” “dialogue,” and “interreligious dialogue,” and the introduction of one unheard-of novelty after another , from communion in the hand to altar girls, all accompanied by a rapid collapse of religious vocations and the spreading apostasy of the lay faithful.

With Francis we appear to be approaching the trajectory’s terminal point: a de facto merger of most of the human element of the Church with the world to which the Church has been “opened,” the Pope to serve as a respected facilitator of worldly diplomacy, social justice and peaceful relations among men of all religions or no religion, as the Church’s mission of making disciples of all nations is definitively abandoned by those who are divinely commissioned to carry it out. As Obama declared on national television in giving thanks to Francis for helping to broker the “breakthrough” that gave the Communist dictators of Cuba everything they wanted in return for almost nothing, leaving the Catholics of Cuba still firmly under their yoke: “I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the world as it is.”  Such praise for a Pope from such a man, for such a reason, cannot fail to awaken serious Catholics to the almost apocalyptic gravity of our situation.

And that is precisely why Francis must been seen as our Man of the Year. For as the New Year begins we can have the certitude of faith that God is already drawing immense good from the disaster of this pontificate as more and more Catholics turn away in horror from the destructive revolution it represents, looking once again toward Tradition and the legacy of the great Popes who labored so heroically to defend the Church from what attacks her with reckless abandon today. 

Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis for Christmas Midnight Mass

 

THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD: MASS IN THE HOLY NIGHT

ST PETER'S BASILICA

24 DECEMBER 2014

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined" (Is 9:1). "An angel of the Lord appeared to (the shepherds) and the glory of the Lord shone around them" (Lk 2:9). This is how the liturgy of this holy Christmas night presents to us the birth of the Saviour: as the light which pierces and dispels the deepest darkness. The presence of the Lord in the midst of his people cancels the sorrow of defeat and the misery of slavery, and ushers in joy and happiness.

We, too, in this blessed night, have come to the house of God. We have passed through the darkness which envelops the earth, guided by the flame of faith which illuminates our steps, and enlivened by the hope of finding the "great light". By opening our hearts, we also can contemplate the miracle of that child-sun who, arising from on high, illuminates the horizon.

The origin of the darkness which envelops the world is lost in the night of the ages. Let us think back to that dark moment when the first crime of humanity was committed, when the hand of Cain, blinded by envy, killed his brother Abel (cf. Gen 4:8). As a result, the unfolding of the centuries has been marked by violence, wars, hatred and oppression.

But God, who placed a sense of expectation within man made in his image and likeness, was waiting. He waited for so long that perhaps at a certain point it seemed he should have given up. But he could not give up because he could not deny himself (cf. 2 Tim 2:13). Therefore he continued to wait patiently in the face of the corruption of man and peoples.

Through the course of history, the light that shatters the darkness reveals to us that God is Father and that his patient fidelity is stronger than darkness and corruption. This is the message of Christmas night. God does not know outbursts of anger or impatience; he is always there, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, waiting to catch from afar a glimpse of the lost son as he returns.

Isaiah's prophecy announces the rising of a great light which breaks through the night. This light is born in Bethlehem and is welcomed by the loving arms of Mary, by the love of Joseph, by the wonder of the shepherds. When the angels announced the birth of the Redeemer to the shepherds, they did so with these words: "This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12).  The "sign" is the humility of God taken to the extreme; it is the love with which, that night, he assumed our frailty, our suffering, our anxieties, our desires and our limitations. The message that everyone was expecting, that everyone was searching for in the depths of their souls, was none other than the tenderness of God: God who looks upon us with eyes full of love, who accepts our poverty, God who is in love with our smallness.

On this holy night, while we contemplate the Infant Jesus just born and placed in the manger, we are invited to reflect. How do we welcome the tenderness of God? Do I allow myself to be taken up by God, to be embraced by him, or do I prevent him from drawing close? "But I am searching for the Lord" - we could respond. Nevertheless, what is most important is not seeking him, but rather allowing him to find me and caress me with tenderness. The question put to us simply by the Infant's presence is: do I allow God to love me?  

More so, do we have the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us, or do we prefer impersonal solutions, perhaps effective but devoid of the warmth of the Gospel? How much the world needs tenderness today!

The Christian response cannot be different from God's response to our smallness. Life must be met with goodness, with meekness. When we realize that God is in love with our smallness, that he made himself small in order to better encounter us, we cannot help but open our hearts to him, and beseech him: "Lord, help me to be like you, give me the grace of tenderness in the most difficult circumstances of life, give me the grace of closeness in the face of every need, of meekness in every conflict".

Dear brothers and sisters, on this holy night we contemplate the Nativity scene: there "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Is 9:1). People who were unassuming, open to receiving the gift of God, were the ones who saw this light. This light was not seen, however, by the arrogant, the proud, by those who made laws according to their own personal measures, who were closed off to others. Let us look to the crib and pray, asking the Blessed Mother: "O Mary, show us Jesus!'"

Pope Francis: Demotion of Burke Not ‘Punishment’

American Cardinal Raymond Burke was removed by Pope Francis from a top Vatican post in November. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File/2012)

Pope Francis has denied that removing American Cardinal Raymond Burke as head of the Vatican’s highest court was a “punishment” for his outspokenly conservative views at a recent summit of bishops, saying instead he wanted a “smart American” to serve as patron of the Order of Malta.

“It is not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod,” Francis said.

The pontiff said that the move was part of a broader restructuring of the Vatican bureaucracy that had been decided well before the October 5-19 synod of bishops on the family. The reason he waited until after the synod to make it official, he said, was so that Burke could still participate in the meeting as the head of a Vatican department.

Read more at Crux >>

Cardinal Burke: Church Teaching on Sexuality Must Be Clarified, and Only Pope Francis Can Do It

Cardinal Raymond Burke

In an interview with Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTE, one of the Catholic hierarchy’s most outspoken defenders of life and family and the Church’s sexual moral teachings again indicated Pope Francis needs to “clarify” that divorced and remarried Catholics, and active homosexuals, cannot be admitted to the sacraments.

As he did during the course of the contentious Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome last month, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke told RTE in a video interview, “I believe very strongly that – I’m not the pope, and I’m not in the business of telling him what to do – but in my judgment this needs to be clarified, and there’s only one person who can clarify it at this point.”

The possibility of the Church in any way accepting sexual immorality, whether in the form of divorce, “second marriages” or homosexual acts, he said, must be taken “off the table” for next year’s Synod in a definitive way that only the pope can accomplish.

The cardinal denied that this was an instance of “defying” the pope’s authority, saying that Pope Francis would agree that Church teaching is immutable. But he added that he cannot see how the Church’s teaching is being clarified by the Synod process of protracted discussion and debate. He said that he has heard from lay people that “there’s really just a growing confusion about what the Church really teaches, and we’re not coming to any clarity.

Read more at LifeSiteNews >>

 

Pope Francis Doesn't Really Understand This Economics Thing, Does He?

From Forbes

By Tim Worstall

Pope Francis has told us all that we’re really very naughty indeed to allow food to become a product like any other, a product in which people can speculate and profit. Which leads to a rather sad observation about Il Papa‘s understanding of basic economics: he doesn’t, essentially, he doesn’t understand basic economics. It is indeed an outrage that there are still 800 million or more of our fellow human beings who are malnourished. Appalling that while the world grows the calories to feed all not all get fed. But once we’ve noted those points, decided (as we damn well should) to do something about them, the interesting question becomes, well, what? At which point we might note that it’s the places with well functioning markets, subject to all that horrible speculation and profit making, that have the people who are not malnourished and not starving. Something Pope Francis might have considered before he said this: 

Ross Douthat: Why I Am A Catholic

From The New York Times - The Opinion Pages

Of all the columns I imagined writing when I started out at this job, it’s safe to say that Sunday’s piece, in which I suggested that conservative Catholics should “resist” their pope if he seems intent on leading the church off a doctrinal precipice, was not one of them. So it’s worth saying something briefly about my own personal religious perspective on the church to which I belong.

The Price of Papal Popularity

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Normally a synod of Catholic bishops does not provide fireworks rivaling the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley’s boys in blue ran up the score on the radicals in Grant Park.

But, on Oct. 13, there emanated from the Synod on the Family in Rome a 12-page report from a committee picked by Pope Francis himself — and the secondary explosions have not ceased.

The report recognized the “positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation” and said “homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community.” As for Catholics who divorce and remarry without an annulment, we must avoid “any language or behavior that might make them feel discriminated against.”

Hailed by gay rights groups, the document stunned traditionalists.

“Undignified. Shameful. Completely Wrong,” said Cardinal Gerhard Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and guardian of Catholic orthodoxy.

He was echoed by Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. “The document lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium,” said Cardinal Burke. “It gives the impression of inventing … what one Synod Father called ‘revolutionary’ teaching on marriage and the family.”

Cardinal Burke called on the pope for a restatement of Catholic teaching on marriage and morality, saying, “It is long overdue.” The pope has relieved Cardinal Burke of his post.

Voice of the Family, a coalition of international pro-life groups, calls the document a “betrayal.”

Irish representative Patrick Buckley said it “represents an attack on marriage and the family” by “in effect giving tacit approval of adulterous relationships.” The report, he adds, “fails to recognize that homosexual inclination is objectively disordered.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper has been the prime mover of the liberalization of Catholic teaching on sexual morality. When an African bishop objected to the report, Kasper retorted, “You can’t speak about this with Africans. … It’s not possible. … It’s a taboo.”

Hearing this insult, Burke went upside the head of his brother cardinal:

“It is profoundly sad and scandalous that such remarks were made by a cardinal of the church. They are a further indication of the determination … to advance Cardinal Kasper’s false positions, even by means of racist remarks about a significant and highly respected part of the Synod membership.”

In the report voted on by the full synod and released this weekend, the language most offensive to orthodox Catholics was gone.

But the synod meets again next year, and the stakes could scarcely be higher for the church and pope.

In his remarks at the synod’s close, Pope Francis mocked “so-called traditionalists” for their “hostile rigidity.”

That is one way of putting it. Another is that traditionalists believe moral truth does not change, nor can Catholic doctrines be altered.

Even a pope cannot do that.

Should such be attempted, the pope would be speaking heresy. And as it is Catholic doctrine that the pope is infallible, that he cannot err when speaking ex cathedra on faith and morals, this would imply that Francis was not a valid pope and the chair of Peter is empty.

We would then be reading about schismatics and sedevacantists.

The Catholic Church is not the Democratic Party of Obama, Hillary and Joe, where principled positions on abortion, homosexuality and same-sex marriage “evolve.” And when did flexibility in matters of moral principle become a virtue for Catholics?

Indeed, it was in defense of the indissolubility of marriage that Pope Clement VII excommunicated Henry VIII who held the title “Defender of the Faith” for refuting the heresies of Luther.

When Henry wished to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Pope Clement said this was not possible. His stand for marriage caused the Catholic Church to lose England.

One wonders what this pope thinks of Pope Clement’s “rigidity.”

While Francis I has neither denied nor sought to change any doctrine, Cardinal Burke is correct. The pope has “done a lot of harm.” He has created confusion among the faithful and is soon going to have to speak with clarity on the unchanging truths of Catholicism.

In his beatification of Paul VI on Sunday, Pope Francis celebrated change. “God is not afraid of new things,” he said, “we are making every effort to adapt ways and methods … to the changing conditions of society.”

But among the social changes since Vatican II and Paul VI have been the West’s embrace of no-fault divorce, limitless promiscuity, abortion on demand and same-sex marriage.

Should the church “adapt” to these changes in society?

Should the church accommodate itself to a culture as decadent as ours? Or should the church stand against it and speak moral truth to cultural and political power, as the early martyrs did to Rome?

Pope Francis is hugely popular. But his worldly popularity has not come without cost to the church he leads and the truths he is sworn to uphold.

“Who am I to judge?” says the pope. But wasn’t that always part of the job description? And if not thee, Your Holiness, who?