I'm NOT saying Pope Francis is a liar. I just want to make that very clear. It's way above my "pay grade" and even were I to do so, I have zero authority to judge him. I have enough work cut out to look after my own salvation. It is for God and the relevant ecclesiastical authorities to judge. Not me. Thankfully. All I am saying is that we must pay attention in these grave times to what is being said and by whom. We need to join the dots so to speak. Educating ourselves about first principles, the basics of our Faith and familiarising ourselves with the writings of the Church Fathers, the Saints, the perennial Magisterium of the Church, Scripture and Tradition has never been more necessary in my opinion. We need to pray the Rosary diligently, keep close to Christ in the Sacraments and educate ourselves and pray still more. Keeping close to our Lady in the Rosary will keep us on the right track.
Yes, it is interesting. It's an example of how people's attitudes and understanding can change over time. Here's part of an interview where the Pope Emeritus was speaking about Pope St. John Paul http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/n...uring-his-life-that-john-paul-ii-was-a-saint/
I am so grateful to Sensus Fidellium. I found them via Audiosancto and I've been listening and watching ever since. I mentioned this before but I think it's worth mentioning again. There's a series of talks for a parish mission on SF that concerns Fatima and our times. It's in several parts and it is excellent, albeit very very sobering.
Lovely, Padraig. Even here in the frozen grip of winter in northern New England, yesterday I heard a bird sing. Not a crow. A song bird, a beautiful trill that I always associate with the spring. To hear it in the midst of our very "dirty weather" was so uplifting. A promise that all this would go and spring would return. No more "always winter and never Christmas" so perhaps I'll take it a step further and say "Aslan is on the move." (or make that Our Lady in this case) Anyway, I live in hope.
I think perhaps Fr. Martin had an "ah hah" moment of light--a great grace. He bailed on all of it (spirit of VII) soon after the trend became clear and the more he learned the more he grew to regret all of it and start to sound the alarm. At least that's how it appears to me. Finally it culminated in his asking Paul VI to release him from his vows to the Jesuits although he wished to remain a priest. If you read the novel Vatican you will see some of this presented fictionally I think.
I think perhaps Fr. Martin had an "ah hah" moment of light--a great grace. He bailed on all of it (spirit of VII) soon after the trend became clear and the more he learned the more he grew to regret all of it and start to sound the alarm. At least that's how it appears to me. Finally it culminated in his asking Paul VI to release him from his vows to the Jesuits although he wished to remain a priest. If you read the novel Vatican you will see some of this presented fictionally I think.
Yes, that was my impression too but I wasn't sure because I don't know enough about him. Sometimes I wonder whether his change of attitude was a little on the extreme side. In Pope Benedict's case, the change seems to have been more gradual and Pope John Paul had a great effect on him. (I've had that triple post thing happen to me a couple of times. Perhaps it's a gremlin).
If a man beats his wife everyday and you refer to him as a "wife beater" you are not "judging" him, you are stating the obvious and referring to his actions, yes? You don't say "well he's going to hell!" because this is in fact judging him. There is a monumental difference that otherwise intelligent people fail to grasp. If someone lies- they are a liar. If someone steals- they are a thief. And the list goes on and on. If we ever get to the point that Truth offends us, we'd better run very fast to the first confessional and be beating our breast for forgiveness. Bergoglio is a liar. He lies....a lot...and truth is neither above or below anyone's pay grade.
Actually calling someone a wife beater is not charitable at all. To take note he beats his wife and to try to correct him is one thing. To brand him a "wife beater" is another. It reduces the person to his actions. That is why the Church has historically said some people suffer from "same sex attraction" instead of using the term "homosexual". One term distinguishes the person from his actions and the other defines him by them. God does not expect us to be blind and ignore the actions of men, but he does expect us to show charity. If we should treat our neighbor with charity how much more then the Vicar of Christ. Do not be blind, but do not condemn, that is not our job. We will be judged on every idle word...
Praetorian, you're right. We need to stand in and for the truth, but in charity. I try to remain charitable even though it can be hard at times. Getting personal about people, whether it be a pope, a priest or even the person next door is never a good idea. It's always best to focus on the behaviour, words, actions and not the person as we do not know the person's heart. A person may be malicious with bad intent but on the other hand they might also simply be ignorant, mistaken, ill informed etc. Only God truly knows the heart.
You are right on in your comments David. I know it is hard for people with all of the difficulties in the Church right now, but we as laity are not called upon to berate the Pope. Nor judge his interior motivations. We are called to resist errors wherever and by whomever they are promulgated. This does not give us a right however to launch into personal assaults against these men. We will be individually judged not only upon if we stood up for Christs truths but how we did it. On the net the past few years I have read some absolutely horrible personal attacks written about the prelates in the Church up to and including the Pope. Some of these things I wouldn't even think of saying about my worst enemy. Pope Francis is not a fool or a clown or any other derogatory name people wish to give to him. He is the Vicar of Christ. Does this mean everything he says and does is straight from the mouth of God? Absolutely not. Many people today have a very poor understanding of Papal Infallibility. It is very limited. Still, Pope Francis is the man standing In Persona Christi as head of the Church. If a Pope says something faulty in one area it does not give us the right to ignore him in other areas. Anyone who thinks so is in serious error. Believe me I am not in any way blind to the errors that are running rampant through the Church right now, but we must rise to the occasion and fight error in the proper manner. The devil will attack those who see the errors in the Church in a different way than he attacks those who do not. On one end of the spectrum he will get people to believe that the Pope is so infallible as to be Divinely protected in every utterance from his lips. This is far from the truth. We have had some real scoundrels as Popes. Anyone who thinks we have not better read up on them. On the other end of the spectrum the devil will try to attack people who see the errors by tricking them into hating the Pope, even separating themselves from submission to him. This is a serious error. Refusing to accept the authority of the Pope is called schism and it incurs an automatic excommunication from the Church. Some people will say "I am loyal to the Papacy, but just not this Pope". Sorry it doesn't work that way. Our loyalty to the Papacy is not dependent upon our personal feelings towards a particular Pope. It gives me no happiness to write these words. I hate the errors that are running rampant in the Church today. I am writing this to try to help lead people to a proper understanding of how we should act in this situation. We must think how the Saints would act. During the Arian crisis did Saint Athanasius call the Pope a clown? Did he refuse to accept his validity as Pope? No, and neither should we towards any Pope. Saint Athanasius fought the errors of his time vigorously and in the proper manner. This is what we are called to do. We are living the Passion of the Church. Fight the errors everyone!!! It is what we were born to do!!! But do not let the devil pull you into the trap of personal animosity to the prelates or to a total refusal of authority. If the enemy can't get you one way he will get you the other. The devil lives at the extremes. "Left" and "right".
Yes Praetorian and David. So right. I've found it useful to ask my Guardian Angel to give me a hard nudge when I'm veering off the course where charity is concerned and may I say he does it. It is helping to keep me focused.
It comes down to this really. It is very easy these days given the constant deluge of information, commentary, opinion pieces to become totally immersed in "news" be it of the Church or the world. Much of the content is negative, extreme and often uncharitable. Given our fallen human nature it is very easy to get caught up in this, to become ensnared in anger, lose our focus and in the process, lose our peace. We may think and believe we are fighting a just cause and that we are in the right. This may even actually objectively be the case. However the danger lies in behaving in a way that is at odds with the wishes of Christ. We can so easily fall into sin, and serious sin at that, if we are not careful. Indignation may lead to anger, then to hatred. We lose our peace, our hearts grow cold and harden and we can begin to neglect prayer. Instead of praying the rosary or doing some profitable spiritual reading, we may feel so compelled to "win" the argument or "prove" our point that we instead spend that time indulging in negativity, to our spiritual detriment. We can easily get caught up in a cycle of endless negativity. Oh the perils of the ego! Our first priority must be the Sacraments, followed by prayer, followed by spiritual reading from orthodox and sound sources e.g. Church Fathers, writings of the Saints etc. Then and only then, when properly nourished and fortified with the Bread of Life and the Word of God, should we raise our voice, always with charity in mind, lest we become imprudent and stray from the straight and narrow path. Satan knows our weaknesses. He will use and exploit them to the full. We should be aware of this. We may become like the "freedom fighter" who with righteous indignation and in a noble cause rises up against an oppressor and then, ironically and tragically becomes an even worse despot than the one he fought against. We must be careful not to fall into that trap. Always keep our eyes on Jesus: He is the way, the truth and the life.
In the spirit of the posts from David and Praetorian above, I recommend that everyone listen to this Sensus Fidelium sermon. Rather than dishing out platitudes and scoffing at Catholics who have difficulty with Pope Francis, this priest understands the serious situation we are in and lays it on the line for us how a faithful Catholic should cope in this confusing and troubling time. I have already posted the link to the video on the Vatican Has Fallen thread, but I think that it is worth posting the link again here:
Thank you for posting this Dolours! If anyone is confused as to the position I have taken I think the above video explains it perfectly. We are to show the Pope the greatest degree of charity possible. This is not my position it is the Catholic position. Please everyone let the 4 Cardinals do their job. Do not separate yourself from the Pope. You will lose your faith by doing this. We are all in great danger. Many "conservatives" on the "right" think they are safe because the attack on souls is coming from the "liberal left". They couldn't be more wrong. The attacks on us are coming from the extreme left and right. Sorry to use the terms "right" and "left" and "conservative" and "liberal" but they are the best I can think of to describe the factions forming in the Church. PLEASE if you have separated yourself from the authority of Pope Francis go to confession and repent of it. Your faith is in danger! Your soul is in danger! Especially if you are one of my beloved trads, this is a big problem in the trad community. The devil loves when people are at the extremes both left and the right. He will use whatever vulnerabilities we have and pick us off in any way he can. Be humble not proud.
You're welcome Praetorian. There are times when being a Catholic is hard. But our salvation depends on it. I have some difficulty following the priest's advice. We can rely on the four Cardinals to do their duty, but it's very hard to keep shtum when the instinct is to shout "stop" at what appears to be yet another attack on the faith from the person entrusted with defending it. Even if I can manage to say nothing, the Sensus Fidelium priest says that's not enough and that we need to be united with the Pope in our hearts. Being united with the papacy is one thing but being united in my heart with this Pope is bordering on the impossible. How can I deceive my heart? Yes, I try to see the good in him and so far all I can come up with is his concern for the poor. That's not to say that everything else about him is bad because we really don't know him. All we have to go on is what he has done, his public statements, the people he surrounds himself with, how he treats those who aren't in lockstep with him, and the documents he has issued. There has to be some more good to him than concern for the poor but I can't find it. I suppose that prayer and humility are the key. Trouble is that humility in this situation feels almost tantamount to self deception. Have you any tips on how to cope? I have never prayed for any Pope as much as for this one. I have raised the matter in Confession a few times with different priests. One priest laughed it off and the rest more or less shared my concerns. One said absolutely nothing in response and I don't know whether it was the language barrier (he looked Oriental - could have been Chinese or Malaysian) or whether he was following the Pope's admonition that the confessional shouldn't be a torture chamber. I also pray that the Holy Spirit will guide me. What a dilemma! (And I'm not a trad.)
Dolours I am exhausted. I just got in and it's late. I will write you a proper answer tomorrow. I know the situation we are all in is very hard. Also I mentioned the trads because being one I visit a lot of trad websites and many of them are truly hateful of the Pope. Pride is a big problem in the community. Fr. Isaac Relyea ( a very good priest) gave a talk to a group of trads once that I listened to and he said the proudest people were the ones sitting in the pews in front of him. I don't say this to upset any trads, they are very fervent and a great group of people. Very, very devout. There is however a strong streak of pride that runs through the community. Sometimes so much so that they will declare the Pope is not Pope anymore as if they had the authority to make that claim. This is a grave error and worries me a lot.
I look forward to your more detailed response. I like David's advice that we should start with Mass, the Sacraments, prayer, reading Scripture and other sound sources such as the Church Fathers. I'm not personally acquainted with any trads but have seen online plenty of examples of what you describe. I get the impression that they expect Popes to be perfect men yet we all know that only Jesus was and is perfect. Perhaps we all expect too much from a Pope. We know that there were problems in the Church before Francis was elected. He was tasked with sorting out the Curia and there was bound to be pushback against that endeavour no matter who had been elected. Pope Benedict ran away from it. Whenever I feel exasperated with Pope Benedict for stepping down, I have to remind myself that he is only human. Most of us have trouble sorting out our own lives. Imagine what it must be like having to sort out the bad eggs in the Church. I wouldn't last five minutes in the shoes of Peter. It isn't just the trads who have a problem with pride. I know that I suffer from it. For example, when I say that I "try" to go to daily Mass. "Try" suggests an effort or penance when in truth being able to go to Mass is a privilege, and I am spoiled for choice when it comes to nearby churches offering daily mass. Being retired, I also have time to avail of those choices. I know of people who attend at least two Masses per day, and probably more on Sundays but they don't boast about it. They didn't tell me. I know about them from others and from seeing them whenever I go to Mass in that Church. Modernists also suffer from pride. They suggest that they are more like Jesus because they put serving the poor above worshipping God or keeping God's Commandments. They talk a lot about helping the poor when really they are talking about using other people's money to do what they think is best for the poor, claiming that their way is the only way. That's pride. We all suffer from pride but I'm not sure that obsequiousness and humility are one and the same. Trouble is that many who see no wrong in Pope Francis are advocating obsequiousness and calling it humility. There has to be a middle ground somewhere for faithful Catholics.
