"The Dictator Pope": Mysterious New Book Looks "Behind the Mask" of Francis

Hi Dolours.

I used to wonder why on EWTN the Papal Posse in discussing Pope Francis's various goings on always turned at once to Financial goings on at the Vatican at the sex scandals there. Well it was because , apparently Pope Francis was elected as a reform Pope to fix things. he has not fixed things at the Vatican, in fact they seem, at least according to the book to have gotten ver much worse. It is a bit like buying an automobile an finding it will never start, a bit of a disaster in fact. It looks good, it sounds good the media love it , but it won;t do what it was supposed to , drive you from , 'A' to 'B', so that you wonder why you bought it.

Pope Francis appears to be trying to sell us on a thoery of a , 'Creative chaos' . That things have to get worse before they get better. But it seems apparent that they are going going to get very,very much worse before they get even very much worse again.

In fairness to Pope Francis others Popes such as Pope St john Paul 2 utterly failed to fix things there. I wonder why? I wonder why?

I find the book hard going. I am giving it a rest for a while til lI get my courage back up again. Why so dispiriting? Not because I do not believe much of it, but because I do.

 

The reason why we should listen intently to pro lifers and most especially their leaders is this. In the old days down the mines they used to take little birds down the mines. When the birds got agitated or died the miners knew the air was bad and so could escape before they got killed themselves.

The pro lifers are our canaries in cages. They have been signing their little hearts out warning us about the poisonous gas of the culture of death all around us. They are a little like scouts warning us of the horrible dangers in the culture around us. The Culture of Death.

Now our little warning birds to our surprise warn us of dangers in the Church itself. Specifically in this Papacy. They are singing their little hearts out in fact.

We would be complete fools not to listen.

 

Jesus called Herod a , 'Fox'. He called the Scribes and Pharisees all kinds of names. He was clearly playing the ball not the man. Why did He do this. Because they were the source of the evil that was being done. So He condemned not simply the evil itself but the source of the evil.

In scripture itself we see the Prophets again and again finger pointing at people at whom the finger should have pointed. In the New Testament we see people like St Paul doing the exact thing

The Fathers of the Church and the saints again and again the same thing. Evil is not disembodied. It comes from the hearts of men.

Here is a good example of finger pointing from scripture.

St Paul directly and in front of many others accuses St Peter , the first Pope, of complete hypocrisy.

Not a nice thing to do. But since when has Christianity been about being nice?

Galatians 2:11

Paul Confronts Cephas
10They only asked us to be mindful of the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. 11When Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, because he stood to be condemned. 12For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group.…

 

'The Greatest Chastisement God can inflict on the World is bad priests'.

St John Eudes.

'The priests have become cesspits of impurity'

Our Lady of La Salette.

We are experiencing an even greater calamity. Our Pope and most of our Cardinals are bad. It is as simple as that and it is a huge chastisement.

This is not a nice thing to say; but it is true thing to say. We have a very,very bad Pope indeed and he is ably assisted by very,very many very bad Cardinals and Bishops.

 

http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/a-more-frightening-thesis.html?m=1

A More Frightening Thesis
I have always avoided direct criticism of Pope Francis preferring to use terms like 'this present Papacy', it is a Catholic thing about the profound deference owed to the Vicar of Christ on Earth, American friends are often more strident, so maybe it is a European thing too; never criticising the King, only his ministers. The other thing is we know what comes out of the Vatican but not its actual source.

Damian Thompson's blog Holy Smoke carries a podcast with him, Dan Hitchens and Ed Condon discussing 'The Dictator Pope', its here. Though they agree with many of the author's "dots", they join them together differently and therefore dismiss his conclusion.

Condon in particular suggests that Pope Francis rather than being the instigator of violence and corruption is the victim of corrupt Vatican officials, because of his naivete, his inability to be clear and articulate, his isolation from reality and from any who might offer any criticism. The villain-in-chief is the Secretary of State, now Cardinal Parolin.

The thesis of the Dictator Pope is shocking, what is expressed in this little podcast with its image of a weak and out of touch Pope manipulated by bureaucrats in the Vatican and the broader (wealthier) Church and the world is absolutely terrifying. The Dictator Pope offers a far more comforting analysis than the more complex one of Condon and his companions.

After listening to the podcast, I will be interested in your opinions

 

The Cardinal Parolin is always appointed as probable successor of Francis, he appears to be someone who unites the liberal and conservative side in the Church

 

Brian,

I thought Cardinal Parolin was a positive hopeful for the next Pope also, to read/hear that he may behind the Malta debacle is a bit upsetting. He along with Cardinal Muller were encouraging an open discussion to sort out the issues with AL but then again I read how that was a bit of a scam, it would have been a fixed debate so to speak, if I remember correctly.

So, who is trustworthy. It is unbelievably confusing. It is not our job to sort it out anyway I suppose and what good would it do if we did sort it all out.

It's back to Our Lady's advice to pray the Rosary or Saint Padre Pio's advice, "Pray, hope and don't worry".

It is interesting to listen to the podcast and see that they are almost as confused as I am about all of this. In addition, Dan Hitchens and Ed Condon state that they believe that the Vatican is tapped, the phones and the internet and such, ugh.

I read through some of the comments on the article and most people sound frustrated.

I go back to my original comment about this book and that was that I hope the Pope would read the book himself, maybe that is what I/we should pray for. These gentleman on the podcast sort of hint that he isolated in a sense, maybe reading the book would help him understand what he is dealing with.

Yeah, I'm still confused about all of this.

 

Excellent podcast Brian, thanks for posting it!
I encourage people to listen if they haven't. It is always good to hear different opinions as long as they are still from a Catholic perspective and not Modernist tripe.

I'm far from subscribing to the thought that Pope Francis is some unwitting dupe as they seem to put forth. Some of the things they say seem to portray him almost as a doddering fool being used by others in Machiavellian style. I think in fact he is a very shrewd politician, and I do mean to use the word politician.

That being said, it does not negate the fact that some others are definitely using his moves to advance their own agendas as well. He certainly does not dot the "i's" or cross the "t's". He paints in broad strokes and lets others fill in the details as long as they don't contradict his general vision of what he wants done. That leaves plenty of room at the local level for Cardinals and Bishops to insert their own agendas into the mix.

 

Like a poorly run business

 

The link to the podcast took me to a comment on it that is worthy of copying here:

None of these speakers seems to question the false distinction between 'liberals' and 'conservatives.' However, the Church is not only a political body, but rather, the bride of Christ. As members of this Bride, we need to be both faithful and flexible. It is not enough to chose either flexibility or fidelity. This is arguably the reason why the Holy Spirit chose Pope Francis to be Bishop of Rome, to make this very point.
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This comment highlights the crucial point that Jesus' Church contains people of every kind of political or cultural background. When we eventually face God when we die, we will not be asked about our political views, only whether we loved God and our neighbor.
.

 

You could not be more wrong. We will be asked about a whole host of issues. We will be judged on every idle word. "Love" doesn't conquer all David. It is not enough to "love" people, but then to support such "political" views as abortion, contraception, or homosexuality. I know plenty of "nice" people. People who give to the poor, are very generous, and are generally wonderful to be around...but they also support abortion, homosexuality or a whole host of other liberal viewpoints in complete opposition to Catholic teaching. That is not okay.

I can only assume you are using the terms liberal and conservative in today's parlance. There is no liberal or conservative Catholicism. There is just Catholicism, which by its very nature is extremely "conservative" by today's standards.

God is Love, but he also governs by laws. That is why one of the first things He did was give us the Ten Commandments. They are not the "Ten Guidelines" by the way. Sometimes to love someone is to be harsh. That is why sometimes correcting children needs to be done by punishing them. This is true love, not the false love that is so popular in the world today.

You are totally blind to what is happening David. It is always a very sad thing to read your comments. I think you are going to be surprised by a whole host of issues you do not realize are a part of Catholicism. I hope and pray for your sake this happens before you die. I am sorry to be so blunt, but I am saying this out of charity. This is not a game, you are in great peril.

 

I posted the following on the World Over thread but there are many topics discussed on this recent episode which apply to this thread. This is the "brief" version, the full length version is on the other thread. I think that this version contains all of the pertinent topics to this thread.



Cardinal Kasper compares the question of admitting divorced and remarried Catholic to communion, "to the distinction in secular law between murder and man slaughter" and Raymond Arroyo's reply, "I'm not sure I follow that".

 

I don't doubt your sincerity, Praetorian, in your response here. But I view you as a person very much as St Paul was before his conversion. Before that overnight conversion, Paul was persecuting Christians relentlessly. Was he a bad man that suddenly became good overnight? No, Paul was a man who was a fervent lover of the Law of God and believed it was his duty to try to stop Christians undermining that Law.

What converted Paul so quickly? Was it some information about his beliefs that he had misunderstood? No, I believe he was made to see and experience God's presence and love in a tangible way. I believe that what Paul experienced is what we will all experience in the Warning that many of us are anticipating.

After the Warning, I believe that I and Praetorian will have a similar Chrisitan belief and zeal !

 

Kinda an oxymoron to say Paul was a "fervent lover of the Law of God" when as a fervent lover of the law one could not justify breaking the 5th commandment of the Law of God by killing peaceful people who followed a peaceful man who died a peaceful resignation to the Fathers Divine Will. I see Saul allot like liberals in the Church today. They hate the commandments of God when they get in the way of social or political issues. They profess a God, but not one that upholds and expects his people to, his commandments. All of them. Even the 6th one on adultery. No grey area. No, if's and's or but's.

 

David,

I think that it is quite odd that you are comparing Praetorian to Saint Paul before his conversion. Praetorian is in no way trying to destroy the Church, in fact, he is attempting to do the exact opposite.

I think that the Warning will bring us to a better understanding of the following verse,

Mark 10:18 (DRA) And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is God.
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As a result of the Warning, do we think that we are going to learn that ten commandments have changed? No.

Malachi 3 (DRA) 5 And I will come to you in judgment, and will be a speedy witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and false swearers, and them that oppress the hireling in his wages; the widows, and the fatherless: and oppress the stranger, and have not feared me, saith the Lord of hosts.

6 For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed.

7 For from the days of your fathers you have departed from my ordinances, and have not kept them: Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have said: Wherein shall we return?​

I think that as a result of the Warning many people are hoping the Pope has a conversion along with the rest of the world.

 

The following is a very good comment imho which was posted on this article from "Peter", http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/a-more-frightening-thesis.html?m=1 ,

"The idea that the pope does not know what is happening assumes gross negligence: it is his duty to know so that he can make sensible decisions.
Without appropriate diligence decisions are reckless.
It is possible that advisors are not always helpful but his decision to refuse to meet the dubia cardinals indicates a refusal to consider any concerns.
He may read only one paper but can ask his staff for a summary of press reports.
He can ask his nuncios to report on views from different parts of the world: the nuncio would tell him both what Tablet readers and Catholic Herald readers are saying and the same for other countries.
He can see the discussions that the press have with his spokesman to see what questions are asked.
So ignorance on his part would be deliberate."​

 

Thanks Fatima, my thoughts on this are ditto.

 

St Paul persecuted the Christians because he saw them undermining the law of Moses. He had zeal for God's Law and that law provided punishment for those who broke it. He believed he was doing God's work.

After his supernatural experience on the road to Damascus, he understood God's Law quite differently. As Jesus said, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Matt 5

 

I view you as a lost brother David and ironically I think you see me the same way.

I actually find it insulting that you consider me someone who lacks in love and lives by the letter of the law only. Not only that but one who persecutes Christians. I don't think you meant it as an insult, but that is how it came across. If this is what you think then you do not know or understand me at all. I have already had my conversion by the way and a rather miraculous overnight one at that. I thank God and Our Lady for it every day. Those who have sought private advice from me here can testify that I am anything but loveless. If anything I am a big softy who does not feel comfortable carrying a big stick.

It is circumstance that has forced me and many others into the appearance of focusing too much on the law. We focus in this because it is being disregarded left and right by those who should know better. I can guarantee you that if we lived in a Jansenist type of time period where many in the Church were focusing only on God's Justice at the expense of His Mercy then I would be stressing Love and Mercy all day long because that would be what was called for. This is not the case today though. Many in the Church are only stressing God's Love and Mercy at the expense of His Laws and Justice. Our view of God must be balanced. Tilting either way is wrong.

Focus only on His Love and Mercy and you are wrong.
Focus only on His Law and Justice and you are wrong.
God is all of these things at once.
It is something that we poor imperfect humans cannot grasp easily.
We tend to tilt one way or the other and must self-correct.

It is a very sad state of affairs when two baptized Catholics do not share the same faith.
I will pray that both of us are brought to the fullness of the Truth.

 

Well of course I didn't say any of that but I recognize it might be construed that I did. I suspect you are full of love. But my point remains. I think your understanding of the faith will change after the Warning and that you will not be viewing me then as 'a lost soul'.

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