All I have to say is what I have already said and believe. All the posts on MOG on the state of the Church are as dust in the wind. Anyone who has spent any time on MOG or in study of Church events in the past 50 years knows the state the Church today. Bottom line for me, it is a waste of time preaching to the choir. It is time for prayer and fasting, not endless posts on Pope Francis as if he has given us the Church that 50 years of social justice sermons of fluff and puff brought forth, just to name one problem. We had clarity with our past popes and it did not stop the mother ship from taking on water. It is the Year of Mercy for a reason and Pope Francis gave the Church this gift and St. Faustina, through our Lord himself said, "Before I come as just judged I will first come as King of Mercy". The day's of mercy are nearing the end (November 20, 1916) and justice is knocking on our door. It is to late to worry about the pope said this and blaa, blaa, blaa. The storm is upon us and the rosary is the only answer and always has been, so double down on it. Peace.
What a vicious, nasty post from someone calling himself Christian. I hope and believe, Fatima, that my "endgame" is the same as yours. Mine is to enter Heaven along with all people given God's gift of human life. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt which is more than you gave me. Every one of us, including you, has been chosen to be the mouthpiece of God to live and share the Gospel. I have never said or even implied that Pope Francis is a persecutor of Jesus. I have said that many people who defend his style of leadership have sunk to the secularists' level of calling those who disagree with them "haters". Given that those most worried about what's happening in the Church are Catholics, they add "Protestant", "unmerciful", "judgmental" and then they sink to the kind of insults contained in your post. I pray more for this Pope than I have ever prayed for any Pope, mostly because he appears to need our prayers more than any Pope in my liftime. I don't hunt for juicy stories slamming the Vicar of Christ. In fact, I don't hunt for juicy stories about anyone. Neither do I find anything "juicy" about media coverage of Pope Francis. On the contrary, I find it very sad. It's very hard to avoid disheartening news coverage of Pope Francis. We are faced with secularists salivating over his latest controversial comments or Catholic news outlets which fall mainly into four categories (1) those representative of Catholics who have been dissenting from Church teaching on marriage and sexual morality since I was old enough to pay attention and are salivating along with the secularists; (2) those who twist themselves inside out trying to reconcile what the Pope is saying with what previous popes have said; (3) those who are expressing genuine concerns about the Pope's stewardship of the Church; and (4) those who slam everything about the Church since Vatican 11. Reading the latest headline or hearing the latest soundbite about how Pope Francis is reforming the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage, the family and sexual morality prompts me to search out and read as much as I can from Catholic sources. What saddens me most is that category (2) can't come up with convincing arguments to show that the other three are completely wrong. Now that blaming the secular media spin is no longer a fallback position, they are looking more and more like the crowd admiring the naked emperor's suit of gold. Sad is how I felt when I read your spurious comments to me. I didn't bother posting to this thread and had decided to not bother posting to it because it's pointless trying to explain to people who have adopted the secularist "you're a hater" position until I read your comment about God's plan. It was such a cop-out following your and others' approach of shooting the messenger rather than refuting the message, so I pointed out to you the truth that no human being is perfect and few if any follow God's precise plan, otherwise there would be no sinners. We have no evidence that Judas was an unrepentant sinner until he made the deal to betray Him. Neither do we have any evidence that Jesus enlisted the help of Judas to guide sinners after the betrayal. In fact Jesus didn't need anyone's advice on how to guide the faithful since He was the perfect teacher. Those who fall back on "Thou art Peter and upon this Rock" seem to forget that the Rock was nowhere to be found at the foot of the Cross, proving that every Pope is capable of denying Christ or being fearful of the consequences of standing up for the Faith (before you get the knives out, this doesn't mean I am accusing Pope Francis of denying Christ). All the Apostles were fearful and shut away in the Upper Room at Pentecost. To suggest that every Pope is incapable of not acting according to God's plan is to suggest that they lose their free will when they step into Peter's shoes, and that would most certainly be heretical. That's most likely the main reason that the Doctrine of Infallibility has limits. I can understand and empathise with fear. I can't understand employing the Romans to guide the Church. This is my second post on this thread. My first post contained this link: https://www.dbb.org.au/_uploads/_ckpg/files/climate-change-and-the-common-good,background info.pdf which is a document about climate change from the Pontifical Scientific Academy, listing the names of those who prepared the document. There are enough people on that list who promote an anti-Catholic agenda to worry me, and I'm surprised that any Catholic would be comfortable seeing their names on a Pontifical document. George Soros is funding the pro-abortion movement in Ireland (another news item that I didn't search for and don't consider juicy). Given the Pope's promoting Climate Change, mass immigration to Europe, his weird statements about common law marriage, homosexual unions, the confusion surrounding Communion for remarried divorcees, his praising the Italian abortionist who is on the global board of the Soros Open Society Foundation, I think that Catholics, particularly Pro-Life, Pro-Traditional Marriage, Pro-Lifelong Marriage Catholics, have grounds for concern. While I don't care for the pictures depicting the Pope as a Soros puppet, I am extremely worried that he has undue influence in the Vatican - any Soros influence is too much influence. Changing the abortion law in Ireland will require a referendum. I don't think I'll bother voting. Supporters of Amoris Laetitia say that the change regarding Communion for people in adulterous unions is none of my business unless I'm in such a union and seeking Communion. I'm not planning on killing any unborn babies, so I take it that abortion is none of my business. Might as well turn a blind eye to abortion, euthanasia and the rest of the anti-life cult. I do recycle so all's not lost. I have no doubt that I'm among the worst sinners on this forum and would love to have Christ's Vicar change pastoral practice to accommodate my sins but I know that Jesus expects me to conform to His will and not vice versa. Believe it or not, as well as praying for the Pope I also pray occasionally for the conversion of Mr. Soros.
It's worth posting the intro to this narrative, for those who don't have time to follow the link provided by Mac: With Burning Concern: We Accuse Pope Francis "The culminating event that impelled us to take this step was the revelation of your 'confidential' letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires authorizing them, solely on the basis of your own views as expressed in Amoris Laetitia, to admit certain public adulterers in 'second marriages' to the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion without any firm purpose of amending their lives by ceasing their adulterous sexual relations. " From Michael Matt, Christopher Ferrara & John Vennari A Joint Declaration from The Remnant and Catholic Family News (Posted in three parts. What follows is Part I) September 19, 2016 Feast of Saint Januarius in the Month of Our Lady of Sorrows Your Holiness: The following narrative, written in our desperation as lowly members of the laity, is what we must call an accusation concerning your pontificate, which has been a calamity for the Church in proportion to which it delights the powers of this world. The culminating event that impelled us to take this step was the revelation of your “confidential” letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires authorizing them, solely on the basis of your own views as expressed in Amoris Laetitia, to admit certain public adulterers in “second marriages” to the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion without any firm purpose of amending their lives by ceasing their adulterous sexual relations. You have thus defied the very words of Our Lord Himself condemning divorce and “remarriage” as adultery per sewithout exception, the admonition of Saint Paul on the divine penalty for unworthy reception of the Blessed Sacrament, the teaching of your two immediate predecessors in line with the bimillenial moral doctrine and Eucharistic discipline of the Church rooted in divine revelation, the Code of Canon Law and all of Tradition. You have already provoked a fracturing of the Church’s universal discipline, with some bishops maintaining it despite Amoris Laetitia while others, including those in Buenos Aires, are announcing a change based solely on the authority of your scandalous “apostolic exhortation.” Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the Church. Yet, almost without exception, the conservative members of the hierarchy observe a politic silence while the liberals exult publicly over their triumph thanks to you. Almost no one in the hierarchy stands in opposition to your reckless disregard of sound doctrine and practice, even though many murmur privately against your depredations. Thus, as it was during the Arian crisis, it falls to the laity to defend the Faith in the midst of a near-universal defection from duty on the part of the hierarchs. Of course we are nothing in the scheme of things, and yet as baptized lay members of the Mystical Body we are endowed with the God-given right and the correlative duty, enshrined in Church law (cf. CIC can. 212), to communicate with you and with our fellow Catholics concerning the acute crisis your governance of the Church has provoked amidst an already chronic state of ecclesial crisis following the Second Vatican Council. Private entreaties having proven utterly useless, as we note below, we have published this document to discharge our burden of conscience in the face of the grave harm you have inflicted, and threaten to inflict, upon souls and the ecclesial commonwealth, and to exhort our fellow Catholics to stand in principled opposition to your continuing abuse of the papal office, particularly where it concerns the Church’s infallible teaching against adultery and profanation of the Holy Eucharist. In making the decision to publish this document we were guided by the teaching of the Angelic Doctor on a matter of natural justice in the Church: “It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter’s subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, ‘Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects’.” [Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 33, Art 4] We have been guided as well by the teaching of Saint Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, regarding licit resistance to a wayward Roman Pontiff: “Therefore, just as it would be lawful to resist a Pontiff invading a body, so it is lawful to resist him invading souls or disturbing a state, and much more if he should endeavor to destroy the Church. I say, it is lawful to resist him, by not doing what he commands, and by blocking him, lest he should carry out his will…” [De Controversiis on the Roman Pontiff, Bk. 2, Ch. 29]. Catholics the world over, and not just “traditionalists,” are convinced that the situation Bellarmine envisioned hypothetically is today a reality. That conviction is the motive for t\his document. May God be the judge of the rectitude of our intentions. Michael J. Matt Editor, The Remnant Christopher A. Ferrara Columnist for The Remnant and Catholic Family News John Vennari Editor, Catholic Family News
Since when are Catholics not permitted to criticize the Pope or any other Church authority? We have had bad popes before:
Someone who wanted to , running a site like this could become a Real Tinpot Dictator who would suppress all dissent with a touch of a button. People and contrary opinions would simply do a dissappearing act. That this is not happening is surely evident with the various ongoing boxing matches. But quite honestly I cannot claim to be neutral in that I have the very gravest of concerns about the way the Church is heading and the current Pontificate. But I try to let all opinions get a shot at hitting the ball, which is fine. It could be otheriwse as I indicated if I pressed certain buttons. But I have not been doing that and I won't. It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. Comrade Joe
You know it might seem to folks that everyone who visits this forum is visiting a combative thread like this. But not so. People are visiting threads from all over the palce, most of them from several years ago. Most of them of a directly spiritual bent, which is what I would expect and hope for. Discussions on the current Church Leadership and directiona re interesting but I don't think they are central to people visitng the forum by any means.
I can imagine the howls of complaints from the traditionalists if such criticisms had taken place during Pope Benedict's reign. Yet Pope Francis preaches exactly the same faith as Pope Benedict did despite all the rubbish pouring forth on the internet. The Pope Emeritus has indicated his complete happiness with Pope Francis and when you people attack Pope francis you are also attacking Benedict.
davidtlg does not appear to like discussion or debate. He has told me that he is sick of me "criticising the Pope" when all I did was to openly question parts of AL that are clearly ambiguous and open to interpretation. Even the secular world are discussing these issues and know that there are different interpretations within the church. Being critical of an idea is not the same as hating the author.
While I am indeed critical of anyone who continually criticizes the Pope, the post to which you refer was mainly complaining of your use of a Medjugorje message for this purpose. I will post my message again here in case you have forgotten it: “…I call you to become my witnesses by living the faith of your fathers. Little children, you seek signs and messages and do not see that, with every morning sunrise, God calls you to convert and to return to the way of truth and salvation…” Yes, garabandal, a beautiful and profound message from Our Lady in Medjugorje but I find it difficult to stomach your use of this message in your continuing series of posts criticizing the Pope and the Cardinal who does most to promote the Medjugorje messages. I suggest, instead, that you take note of Our Lady's words and try to take them to heart.
We must be getting wires crossed because I was not using that message against the Holy Father. Please read that quote in context to the other messages I wrote on that thread & was actually comparing the message with Cardinal Schonborn's complex theological reasoning about the objective nature of sin and how we get in a right relationship with God. Cardinal Schonborn. The complexity of family situations, which goes far beyond what was customary in our Western societies even a few decades ago, has made it necessary to look in a more nuanced way at the complexity of these situations. To a greater degree than in the past, the objective situation of a person does not tell us everything about that person in relation to God and in relation to the church. This evolution compels us urgently to rethink what we meant when we spoke of objective situations of sin. And this implicitly entails a homogeneous evolution in the understanding and in the expression of the doctrine'. Whereas our Lady's message gets to the core of what is needed. “…I call you to become my witnesses by living the faith of your fathers. Little children, you seek signs and messages and do not see that, with every morning sunrise, God calls you to convert and to return to the way of truth and salvation". On Ash Wednesday we are given the ashes and told "repent and believe in the Good News"- simple message. Repentance from sin is the first step to receiving mercy. Given that Schonborg is a supporter of Medjugorje he must know that the call there is one of conversion, penance, scripture, confession and Eucharist. Complex theological reasoning converts very few!
So if I have legitimate concerns about certain ambiguous statements in AL that are open to different interpretations by bishops and cardinals in our own Church then I am guilty of 'criticising the Pope'?
True, but there are many times complex theological reasoning is necessary. Pope Benedict has written many books full of such reasoning!
This thread is a perfect example of the type of criticism I am referring to. Relentless and lacking in respect.
You didn't answer my question. If I have legitimate concerns about certain ambiguous statements in AL that are open to different interpretations by bishops and cardinals in our own Church then am I guilty of 'criticising the Pope'?
If it isn't pleasing to David then it is an open criticism of Pope Francis. Well this is my interpretation of what you are saying But I am open to correction.
With Burning Concern: We Accuse Pope Francis Part II of III "As you revealed in your manifesto (Evangelii gaudium, 94), you are filled with contempt for tradition-minded Catholics, whom you rashly accuse of “self-absorbed Promethean neopelagianism” and of “feel[ing] superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past.” You even ridicule a “supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline” because, according to you, it “leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others…” A Joint Statement from The Remnant and Catholic Family News Michael J. Matt, Christopher Ferrara & John Vennari (click here for Part I) PART II An Absurd Whitewash of Islam Assuming the role of a Koranic exegete in order to exculpate Mohammed’s cult from its unbroken historic connection to the conquest and brutal persecution of Christians, you declare: “Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” [Evangelii gaudium, 253] You ignore the entire history of Islam’s war against Christianity, continuing to this day, as well as the present-day barbaric legal codes and persecution of Christians in the world’s Islamic republics, including Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. These are regimes of oppression intrinsic to Sharia law, which Muslims believe Allah has ordained for the whole world, and which they attempt to establish wherever they become a significant percentage of the population. As you would have it, however, Muslim republics all lack an “authentic” understanding of the Koran! You even attempt to minimize outright Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, Africa and the very heart of Europe by daring to posit a moral equivalence between Muslim fanatics waging jihad—as they have since Islam first emerged—and imaginary “fundamentalism” on the part of the observant Catholics you never cease publicly condemning and insulting. During one of the rambling in-flight press conferences in which you have so often embarrassed the Church and undermined Catholic doctrine, you uttered this infamous opinion, typical of your absurd insistence that the religion founded by God Incarnate and the perennially violent cult founded by the degenerate Mohammed are on equal moral footing: I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy … this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law … and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence ... I believe that in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them. When fundamentalism comes to kill, it can kill with the language—the Apostle James says this, not me—and even with a knife, no? I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence. It defies belief that a Roman Pontiff would declare that random crimes of violence committed by Catholics, and their mere words, are morally equivalent to radical Islam’s worldwide campaign of terrorist acts, mass murder, torture, enslavement and rape in the name of Allah. It seems you are quicker to defend Mohammed’s ridiculous and deadly cult against just opposition than you are the one true Church against her innumerable false accusers. Far from your mind is the Church’s perennial view of Islam expressed by Pope Pius XI in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart: “Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them into the light and kingdom of God.” A Reformist “Dream,” Backed by an Iron Fist All in all, you appear to be afflicted by a reformist mania that knows no bounds beyond your “dream” of the way the Church should be. As you declared in your unprecedented personal papal manifesto, Evangelii gaudium (nn. 27, 49): 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…. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the 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, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37). Incredibly enough, you profess that the immemorial “structures” and “rules” of the Holy Catholic Church were cruelly inflicting spiritual starvation and death before your arrival from Buenos Aires, and that now you wish to change literally everything in the Church in order to make her merciful. How are the faithful to see this as anything but the sign of a frightening megalomania? You even declare that evangelization, as you understand it, must not be limited by fear over the Church’s “self-preservation”—as if the two things were somehow opposed! Your gauzy dream of reforming everything is accompanied by an iron fist that smashes any attempt to restore the vineyard already devastated by a half-century of reckless “reforms.” For as you revealed in your manifesto (Evangelii gaudium, 94), you are filled with contempt for tradition-minded Catholics, whom you rashly accuse of “self-absorbed Promethean neopelagianism” and of “feel[ing] superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past.” You even ridicule a “supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline” because, according to you, it “leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others…” But it is you who are constantly classifying and analyzing others with an endless stream of pejoratives, caricatures, insults and condemnations of observant Catholics you deem insufficiently responsive to the “God of surprises” you introduced during the Synod. Hence your brutal destruction of the thriving Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate on account of a “definitely traditionalist drift.” This was followed by your decree that henceforth any attempt to erect a new diocesan institute for consecrated life (for example, to accommodate displaced members of the Friars) will be null and void absent prior “consultation” with the Holy See (i.e., de facto permission that can and will be withheld indefinitely). You thus dramatically diminish the perennial autonomy of bishops in their own dioceses even as you preach a new age of “collegiality” and “synodality.” Targeting cloistered convents, you have further decreed measures to compel the surrender of their local autonomy to federations governed by ecclesial bureaucrats, the routine breaking of the cloister for external “formation,” the mandated intrusion of laity into the cloister for Eucharistic adoration, the outrageous disqualification of conventual voting majorities if they are “elderly,” and a universal requirement of nine years of “formation” before final vows, which is certain to stifle new vocations and ensure the extinction of many of the remaining cloisters. God help us! (cont'd)
