Christ, Our King

17 responses to “Christ, Our King”

1. Is Christ Still our King? Do we even have a faithfull vicar?

   And at the end of the so-called Jubilee Year of Mercy, I am left with questions about the fine line between accompaniment and enabling, and with Tim Kaine and other pro death Jesuit Trained Cafeteria Catholics in the spotlight, questions about the competency of the Jesuit order to teach theology at all.

   And after this weekend of the Pope himself abandoning support for Church teaching on marriage, the family, and a consistent ethic of life, I have to ask: is the Pope Catholic? Has Mercy destroyed Justice to the point that a moral life is now unthinkable?

2. Yes Tim, the Vicar of Christ is faithful.

3. Good, then he should be able to answer five little questions and permanently end all the rumors.

4. I’ve lost trust in Pope Francis. That is the bottom line. I cannot trust him on many things. That statement about people who prefer the Latin Mass being rigid is telling. I’m not a big fan of the Latin Mass, but why would one be rigid if you prefer it? What he is saying is that tradition is rigid and that he is progressive. Pope Francis has completely lost my trust. We ought to pray for him to have a change of heart or pray for a new Pope soon.

5. Manny if this comment had come from anybody but you, I would have deleted it. But I know you are saying this in a kind of pain because you love the Church.

   I have great trust in Pope Francis in that I believe without doubt that he sees and understands things I don’t.

   I have experienced on this blog and in one of our priests here in Oklahoma who is all in for the Latin mass, the mean-spiritness and downright cruelty that sometimes accompanies a faux religiosity based on form rather than content. I expect that was what the Holy Father may have been referring to — assuming that he even said this. I only found one site that quoted him with these words, and it was a site devoted to right-wing discussion and viewpoints on issues that Pope Francis has opposed.

   However, if he said it, I believe that it was probably based on a reaction to the downright evil way that the Latin mass is being used to divide the faithful from their Church rather than unite them with it, and the way that some of the people who are so fervent about it seem to think that the Latin words confer holiness almost like a superstitious incantation or something.

   I personally don’t care if people want to go to the Latin mass. I have no problems with it whatsoever. However, I am kind of tired of the divisiveness and self-righteousness that some of these people go in for. I don’t think the Latin mass causes this. I think they choose the Latin mass because choosing it gives them an opportunity to give vent to these darker impulses that are inside them already. I am guessing that this is what the Holy Father was referring to.

   I hope that you don’t yield to this divisiveness and the impulse to attack our Pope. He is a good man who is preaching Christ as Christ needs to be preached to this particular generation. If he calls some people out on their sins, that is well within his purview. If he leans toward one form of liturgy over the other, that also is well within his purview. He is the Pope.

   I cherish you Manny. You are a good man, and, in spite of — or maybe because of — your ornery right-wingedness, you are one of my faves. We’re all suffering in these times of vicious public discourse. We’ve been used and abused by those who want to lead us to their own benefit, including by some of our fallen religious leaders. But the Holy Father only wants what’s good for us. I believe that without doubt.

6. Is that comment worthy of being deleted? Well, I’m sorry but I am very serious. I’m surprised you could only find one site devoted to this issue. When I googled “Pope Francis quote Latin Mass Too Rigid” I found scores of sites discussing it. Is The Catholic World Report right wing? Here, and they discuss the issue with all its nuances:
   http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/5204/digging_into_pope_francis_remarks_about_the_old_latin_mass_rigidity_and_insecurity.aspx

   That article is one of the nicest refutations of Pope Francis’ quote. There are those who feel down right insulted, and you can read why here:
   http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-op-ed-thoughts-on-pope-franciss.html

   I don’t blame them for being insulted. But more importantly what is going on intellectually is a debate over Pope Benedict XVIs “Reform of the Reform” and Pope Francis who has killed Pope Benedict’s initiative. You can google that if you’re not familiar. This is a debate between tradition based Catholicism and Progressive. This is not a left/right American political debate.

   What is disconcerting is that every issue Pope Francis takes up he sides with the progressives. Divorce, abortion, homosexuality, woman’s priests, economics, he sides with the most Liberal sides a Pope can reasonably go. He is not an evolution from Popes St JPII and Benedict XVI but a break in a Liberal direction. Now perhaps people will go on to say Pope Francis misspoke for the umpteenth time. But either Pope Francis is a simpleton who can never get his words right or a politician in the Machiavellian style. I’m not a hundred percent sure which one or if both, but either way I have lost faith in him. Completely. He may actually cause a schism.

   Now here’s another quote of his that got my goat up: “it is the communists who think like Christians.” Tell that to the millions who were executed. Urrgh, this man is a dope. Here:
   http://www.onepeterfive.com/pope-communists-think-like-christians/

7. Manny, I just don’t see those comments the way you do. The first one, in which he said the it was not accurate to state that Pope Benedict XVI’s move to allow the Latin rite in limited circumstances was not a “reform of the reform” is, it seems to me at least, a simple statement of fact. Pope Benedict XVI didn’t, at least so far as I understand it, “reform” Vatican II. He just allowed what had always been within the province of the Pope to allow, which was saying the mass in Latin in some limited circumstances.

   The second statement is clearly part of an inflammatory rant designed to attack Pope Francis. For instance :… “Pope Benedict accomplished a just and magnanimous gesture [Summorum Pontificum] to reach out to a certain mindset of some groups and persons who felt nostalgia and were distancing themselves. But it is an exception.” One can hardly read this sentence without picturing a large, important man patting a small, innocent girl on the head as he hands her a lollipop. …” and he goes on blah, blah, blah.

   Here is what Pope Benedict XVI actually SAID: “Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the ‘Lex orandi’ (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi,’ and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s ‘Lex credendi’ (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite.”

   NOTE: He said that mass in the vernacular is the ORDINARY expression and mass in the Latin is the EXTRAORDINARY expression of the liturgy.

   It’s not in any way an abrogation of this statement for Pope Francis to say that Pope Benedict allowed the Latin mass as an exception. It is what Pope Benedict XVI did. The nasty spin on this is coming from a writer with an agenda, not the Holy Father.

   Pope Francis is the pope. It is well within his purview to make these statements. Absolutely and totally within his job description … as opposed to the ranting commenter you linked to.

   As for his comment about Communists, your link didn’t work for me. But I managed to get to what I think you were linking and found another rant. Evidently the part that got the author going is from an interview Pope Francis gave. Here’s what I think is the part that you’re upset about:

   “You told me some time ago that the precept, “Love your neighbour as thyself” had to change, given the dark times that we are going through, and become “more than thyself.” So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the programme of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?

   “It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom”.

   I think that comment falls along the lines of what Jesus said when He was speaking to the rabbis and priests and told them “prostitutes and tax collectors will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before you do.”

   Many of the people who are so hard hearted toward the poor and the disenfranchised — and who seem to hate Pope Francis with a black hatred that denies any claim they might make to following Christ — are, when they ignore the weak and the poor, turning their backs on Christ crucified, standing right in front of them. They are drop-kicking the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount for their heretical worship of Ayn-Rand -type economics. I believe that their behavior, especially in attacking the Pope they way they do, is satanic.

   Given the downright malicious way that these sin-sick people treat the pope, precisely because he keeps preaching Christ instead of giving them “teaching” that lets them off the hook for putting their politics ahead of Christ, it was unwise for him to say it this way. But then, it was unwise for Jesus to say what he said, too.

   Telling a self-worshipping high priest that prostitutes and tax collectors will enter heaven before he does was right in there with telling a bunch of self-worshipping right wingers that Communists come closer to following the Gospel than they do. It got pretty much the same reaction in both cases.

   Does Pope Francis side with “progressives?” I don’t think so. You’re wrong when you say he’s come out in favor of women priests. I’ve read a number of statements he’s made that contradict that. As for homosexuality, I’ve never read anything he’s ever said that favors or supports sexual perversion of any sort, including incest, rape, sexual assault, child abuse, pornography or, yes, homosexuality. What he HAS said is that homosexuals are human beings and that God loves them just as much as he loves you and me. I believe he also said, with his famous “who am I to judge?” statement that when a homosexual — in this instance, it was a priest — repents of his sexual promiscuity and attempts to follow Christ that he (or she) is welcome at Christ’s table.

   There is a name for that. It’s called Christianity. The Pope is preaching Christ. And Jesus Christ makes worshippers of political gods angry. He always has.

   As for me deleting the comment, I didn’t. But if it had come from someone else, I would have thought they were just trying to use my blog to trash the Holy Father. With you, I know I am dealing with a sincere person who is struggling.

   Luv ya Manny. I really do.

8. I know you do. I’m not angry at you. 🙂

   First off, you’re bringing in non sequiturs. I know of no faithful Catholic, conservative or progressive, that is hard hearted against the poor. None. So I don’t know why you’re bringing that up. I am not saying that Pope Francis is not compassionate.

   You’re probably right. Every single one of Pope Francis’ comments can be defended or explained as a slip of the tongue or a bad translation. It’s when you take them all together, plus his looseness when it comes to the social issues, his semi Liberation theology when it comes to economics, his put downs against conservative Bishops, his relief on the criteria for absolution to abortion, his rather mild reprimand to the LCWR, his sympathies on women priests, etc. It goes on and on. There isn’t a conservative stance he seems to align with.

   So – and here’s the big therefore – when he says it is “rigid” to prefer the Latin Mass, that reveals a whole lot about him. Why would it be rigid to prefer the Latin Mass? It’s like someone saying he is rigid because he prefers steak over chicken. There’s no difference. He is alienating tradition, that’s what he’s really saying. And ifg he can alienate one form of tradition, what other forms of tradition is he trying to alienate? He’s got a mindset very similar to the Anglican/Episcopalians. He’s trying to push the church away from the Magisterium. And he’s doing it either in a political Machiavellian way or he’s doing it out of stupidity.

   You tell me, where has he taken a conservative side to any issue? I’m talking about within the context of the Roman Catholic Church. Any one.

   Maybe you’re missing it, but he’s creating real heartaches among Catholics who are conservative. You heard about the four Cardinals who challenged him on his “Amoris Laetitia?” And a whole slew of religious have challenged him on Islamic immigration. It’s starting to get out in the open. Here’s today’s article from The Catholic Thing, “Divorce, Abortion. . .What’s Next?”
   https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/11/28/divorce-abortion-whats-next/

   In the words of a Catholic friend, “I’m done with this Pope. Done.” And she didn’t mean it complimentary. I echo it. I’m done.

9. I just plain refuse to take sides in Vatican quarrels among the boys. Priests fight among themselves like a bunch of children, and they do it all the time. His put downs of any bishop are within his purview as pope. It’s that simple. He’s the pope. I think allowing priests to give absolution for abortion is a good idea, not a bad one. If someone is willing to seek forgiveness for their sins — whatever the sin — then the Church needs to provide confession for them. Providing the sacraments to sinners is what the Church does; it’s part of the call that Jesus gave Peter when He said “Feed my sheep.” Confession isn’t a free pass, and it’s certainly not going soft on abortion. It’s Christ’s mercy, extended to those who need it, which, would be all of us Mr Manny.

   I don’t feel all this sympathy from the pope for women priests you reference. I’ve heard this pope say again and again that women can’t be ordained. As for his reprimand of the LCWR, again, that is his call as pope. We don’t have the first clue what happened behind closed doors between the nuns and him.

   All I’ve ever heard him say about the poor sounds like Gospel teaching to me. As for Catholics who don’t have compassion for the poor, you have to remember where this pope is from. He is from a country which is majority Catholic, and where people were murdered and tortured and disappeared by their own government and where children scavenge for food in garbage dumps. His perspective is going to be different from ours.

   One thing I keep hearing in all this constant attacking of the Holy Father — not you Manny, but others — is an obtuse viewpoint that the pope should be an American and should view the world as if it was all America. He isn’t American and the Church is not America and Christianity is not just about America. It’s a mistake to think that every word out of his mouth, he’s talking about Kansas. He just might be talking about the slums of Bangladesh.

   As for the rogue bishops challenging the pope, I imagine you can guess what I think of that.

   I can’t comment about everyone who likes the Latin mass. As I said, I don’t care if that’s what someone wants to attend. It’s fine with me. But I will say that some of the Latin mass people I’ve encountered on this blog have been nasty mean to deal with. If the Holy Father has met a lot of those types, I can understand his comments completely.

   As for all the other things, here’s my take. I was so sick when Amoris Laetitia came out that I didn’t have a single thought about it. There was a time when I couldn’t even hold a book and read and I think this thing came out during that period. I was, at some point, I don’t remember exactly when (time for this whole past year is blurry to me) that I realized that there was the usual carrying on about whatever he had said.

   Then, when I finally tottered back to life a bit, I realized that I didn’t care. I just plain didn’t care. If the Holy Spirit wants to share the blessings of the Eucharist — or whatever the fight’s about — with a lot of people who’ve been on the outside looking in, then who am I, with my sins and faults, to complain? Jesus said the last shall be first. He ate with sinners and the first time He revealed He was the Messiah, He did it to a Samaritan woman who was living with a man she wasn’t married to after having been married 5 times.

   I just can’t get rattled because somebody else is welcome at the Lord’s table despite their sins. I’m just grateful He let me in.

   As for being “done” with the Holy Father, never. He is the pope and I am a Catholic.

10. I read all the comments between you and Manny. As a religiously liberal person, all I can say (naturally not understanding some of the things you were writing about) is that I find this Pope to be a very wise man, who has shed some light into the faith. I was never a fan of Benedict, as I found him very cold, but I feel love from the current Pope. Obviously as a non-Catholic, I’m not obligated to follow his lead, however, there are a lot of things I agree with him about. (of course there are some things where I disagree with him.) Change is hard for all of us, and it sounds like some Catholics find him too liberal. IMO, for what it is worth, the faith could use a bit of updating, while keeping with the main beliefs, and Pope Frances seems to be doing that.

11. OK, let’s end it here. I just don’t trust Pope Francis.

    By the way, here are two more articles on how some are beginning to rebel against Pope Francis and the turmoil it’s creating:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/his-holiness-declines-to-answer.html?_r=1
    and
    http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/5239/cardinals_in_the_church_have_rights_too.aspx

    And even First Things has a specific article devoted to this:
    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/11/wanting-to-love-the-pope

12. I agree that we have both had our say for now. Perhaps one difference between us, at least on this, is that I’m not persuaded by articles like the ones you link to. I am persuaded by the fact that Pope Francis is Peter and, even when I disagree with him — his opposition to life sentences for murder comes to mind — it’s never over doctrinal issues, and it never, in any way refutes his right to be the pope, fully and totally. If he decides to de-incardinate those rogue cardinals, that is his call. If he decides to do what they want, that also is his call.

    I do believe that all this consternation that the article mentions is in reality just a relatively small group of Catholics who mostly talk to one another. I have never heard one word of this coming from any of the pew sitters I hang out with. Not one. They are unaware of the whole thing.

    What I honestly think is that the devil is running things here in America, including the thinking of some Christians. When Catholics have whole blogs dedicated to malicious attacks on the pope. something is wrong with the Catholics running those blogs. What they are doing is not of Christ.

    Now, we’ll let it go for a while my friend.

13. Well, the difference between us is I’m a bad boy. 😛

    The four Cardinals are not bloggers or commentators. Peace.

14. I’m glad you do Pagansister. There is still much to like about Pope Francis. His pastoral care and concern is admirable and noteworthy.

15. I’m not belaboring this Rebecca, but I did want you to see the extent of the concern with Pope Francis. The articles keep coming but I think today Fr. James Schall concisely and respectfully articulates the concern, appropriately titled, “The Concern.” Here:
    http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/the-concern

16. I’ll read it Manny. I always trust that whatever you’re saying, it is from a sincere love of Jesus and His Church.

17. Smiling. Yes, Manny, I agree. There is a lot of good in Pope Francis, and being in the position he is in, it is hard to please everyone. 🙂