UPDATE 8/29: More from the Cupich interview. Has to be seen to be believed.
The pattern is by now familiar. Serious criticisms are leveled by serious people against the pope; the pope ignores them; and his associates and defenders disregard the substance of the criticisms while flinging ad hominem attacks at the critics. This happened during the doctrinal controversies over Amoris Laetitia and capital punishment, and it is happening again in the wake of Archbishop Vigano’s astonishing testimony. The pope refuses to answer the charges against him. The Usual Sycophants try to smear the archbishop and his defenders as disgruntled reactionaries. Among Uncle Ted’s boys, Cardinal Cupich leapt almost immediately for the bottom of the rhetorical barrel: “Quite frankly, they also don’t like [the pope] because he’s a Latino.”
The pattern is by now familiar. Serious criticisms are leveled by serious people against the pope; the pope ignores them; and his associates and defenders disregard the substance of the criticisms while flinging ad hominem attacks at the critics. This happened during the doctrinal controversies over Amoris Laetitia and capital punishment, and it is happening again in the wake of Archbishop Vigano’s astonishing testimony. The pope refuses to answer the charges against him. The Usual Sycophants try to smear the archbishop and his defenders as disgruntled reactionaries. Among Uncle Ted’s boys, Cardinal Cupich leapt almost immediately for the bottom of the rhetorical barrel: “Quite frankly, they also don’t like [the pope] because he’s a Latino.”
This “ignore the message and pillory the messenger” strategy would be contemptible coming from a grubby ward politician. It is, needless to say, utterly unworthy of the Vicar of Christ and his cardinals. But from the point of view of cynical political calculation, it has its advantages. It has, after all, seemed to work so far.
However, I don’t
think it will work this time. The
conditions that facilitated it before don’t obtain in this case. Large numbers of Catholics hold heterodox
views on matters of divorce and marriage and capital punishment, not to mention
many other topics. They are quite happy
with Amoris, the change to the catechism,
and all the other doctrinally problematic statements the pope has made over the
last five years. Meanwhile, many
orthodox Catholics, well-meaning but naïve, have been willing to put up and
shut up as long as they can cobble together some far-fetched interpretation of
the problematic statements that seems to preserve continuity with past
teaching. Then there are all the
Catholics who aren’t even paying attention to these doctrinal controversies in
the first place. Under these
circumstances, writing off the critics as a minority of cranks can be
effective.
The current
scandal is very different. Even in the
current low state of the Church and society, no one wants to defend predatory perverts
and those who cover for them, much less take them on board as close advisors. Nor are there theological nuances here that
might seem to provide the guilty a means of finessing the gravity of their
offenses. The situation is easily
understood, and, given its salaciousness, bound to draw the attention and disapproval
even of people who ordinarily take no interest in Church affairs. This isn’t some abstract doctrinal
controversy. It’s a question of what the
pope and the cardinals closest to him knew about “Uncle
Ted” and when they knew it. Under these circumstances, refusing to comment
except to smear your accusers only lends plausibility to the accusations.
The pope
already found
out the hard way in Chile that populism does not cover a multitude of
sins. It looks like the lesson may now
be repeated on a much larger scale. It may
be precisely the people, rather than the theologians, who prove to be the most
effective critics of “the people’s pope.”
However this all plays out, at this point Pope
Francis’s place in history seems assured.
Related
posts:
...no one wants to defend predatory perverts and those who cover for them...
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me, Ed, is that (cases of pedophilia aside) too many Catholics, lay and clergy alike, don't think homosexual acts to be perverted. If the Catholic house is to be cleansed of the queer cabal, who will do it?
Regarding Cupich, he is not merely casting aspersions, but lying. He knows that millions of orthodox Catholics are perfectly ready to love a Pope of any ethnic extraction, be he Polish, Italian, Latin, Asian or African. For God's sake, just give us one worthy of the name.
Perverted?
DeleteHomosexual acts are disordered -- as homosexuality is a biological disorder -- but they are not sinful.
Love can never be sinful.
If the act is disordered, is it love?
DeleteSticking a reproductive organ in a digestive tract is not love... It is an act of madness, and a sin, and as Aristotle says, akin to a man eating sand.
DeleteA distinction without a difference, since disordered and perverted mean the exact same thing. If you said "pica is a perversion of the nutritive appetite", the only people who would disagree with you would be the ones who don't know what "perversion" actually means.
DeleteAnonymous claims homosexual acts (sodomy) are disordered but not sinful. But the Catholic Faith is that "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."
DeleteGrave depravity. In other words, sinful.
Love can never be sinful. Therefore acts of sodomy are never acts of love.
Stalin loved the USSR. Hitler loved Germany. Mao loved China. It's just that the things they did - how they "loved" - were evil. A sodomizer may indeed have a warm and fuzzy for his target, and may even do lots of nice things for him and generally wish him well, but the fact that the natural order of human generation is being so flagrantly violated constitutes a serious offense against the One who created that order, and to Whom all true acts of love are ordered.
DeleteModernists are not Catholic in the first place.
DeleteThe love of sin and sinful behavior is indeed a most sinful love.
DeleteThat X is a form of love, is no proof that it is not evil. A murderer may love the thought of murdering an enemy, but that love is a perverted love. Loving to gas Jews is a form of love - and it is a love that is evil. Love is the cause of all sin, because all sin is born of loves that are wrong in some way.
DeleteThis error that if X is a form of love, it is blameless, was refuted by Dante 700 years ago, in the Purgatorio.
Love is never sinful? How about I marry my mother because we're in love?
Delete"In love" is just a modern euphemism for "in lust". Love, strictly speaking — or, if we're speaking strictly, charity — is never sinful, for by definition it is aimed at the good, that is, it wants what is good for the beloved.
DeleteAquinas contrasts charity with a broader sense of "love" (the sort of desire or attraction that can — and in this fallen world so often is — inordinately indulged beyond what is good) in III.23:
"...not every love has the character of friendship, but that love which is together with benevolence, when, to wit, we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves, (thus we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like), it is love not of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence."
The gullible acceptance of "love" redefined to mean "concupiscence" is perhaps the most harmful blow to modern society.
>Love can never be sinful.
DeleteAye, for love is willing the good of another. But not everything done with a beloved is love. Let's say for instance that, in jealousy for her love, I strangeled my wife to death. I may have my whole life done everything to look after her good, but in this act obviously I have departed from my love for her. So too with many other acts.
Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet apparebit: Nil inultum remanebit.
ReplyDeleteThis whole situation brings de Maistre to mind, God did not punnish our sins for the French Revolution, because the Revolition was the punnishment. It is analagous to Francis, we are not going to be punnished for the whole situation because the situation is the punnishment.
ReplyDeleteCupich went as far as to say this:
ReplyDelete“The Pope has a bigger agenda,” he said. “He’s got to get on with other things—of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”
It seems that Rome is in apostasy... God have Mercy on us!
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/08/28/cardinal-cupich-the-pope-has-a-bigger-agenda/
I was relieved Cupich said that because finally someone in the Pope's inner circle is admitting what the REAL problem is: this Pope is not Catholic; he is not a believer in the Catholic faith and is not focused on it. Regardless of whatever Pope Francis believed when he first became a priest, he does not believe it now. Why else would one of his pets unprompted proclaim that his priorities are the entirely worldly subjects of climate change and migrants? That is why we are where we are right now: the Catholic Church for five years has been led by a man who does not believe in Catholicism and has chosen deputies who are, to lesser degrees, perhaps, also unattached to true Catholicism.
DeleteThe Jesuit order has been afflicted with a parade of heretics for 150 years. PF is uneducated and he is easily misled by 'Progressive' intellects whom, he thinks, put him on the 'right' side of history. Evil is so banal.
DeleteAh Sedes what is the point of you? You lot are Protestants who pray in Latin.
DeleteFrancis is Pope get over it and so where all his predecessors back to Pius XII and back to Peter. His mistakes, sins, stupidity, private errors or whatever do not invalidate Matt 16:18 anymore then Alexander VI brood of bastard children or Sergus III bonking his 15 year old mistress at the Vatican. (Also I believe at least four of the Pope's in the 1500's might have been homosexuals).
Sell you story walking. We are Catholics here. I will NEVER join your false sect even if someone produces pictures of the Holy Father with a goat wearing High Heels.
I pray for my Spiritual Father & I will pray Pope Benedict speaks and ends this once and for all.
Personally I give Pope Francis to about around January before he retires. I would take bets but that would be unseemly.
Remember that old Certs commercial:
DeleteTwo . . two . . two Popes in one
I don't share your optimism, though I hope I am wrong. The smear campaign against Vigano is already at a fever pitch among the accused and many of the marxist organs are already saying that it was OK to cover up McCarick's actions because they were with consenting adults. They literally said it was not illegal, just "unethical." For what it's worth, my guess is the pope will continue in silence and, if he loses 1/3 of the Church's confidence or even causes a schism, he won't care.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The public pressure would seemingly be too great for the pope to merely ignore Abp. Vigano's accusations (like he did with the dubia). Then again, when I first heard the news I thought this was immediate game-over for the pope and the others mentioned by Abp. Vigano...I did not imagine that there would actually be defenders of the pope still! Astounding. Simply Astounding. The lengths that people will go to defend the indefensible. And the blatant ad hominems without even thinking Vigano's accusations are worthy of investigation. Have people lost their minds? Apparently so. Or at least they refuse to use their minds.
ReplyDeleteA big reason that heterodoxy flourishes in Catholic dioceses is that bishops create bureaucracies with like-minded heterodox views. At the top is the diocesan newspapers whose main job is to protect the bishop from criticism.
ReplyDeleteHeterodoxy is the larger and more serious problem. A person who commits sexual sin, even heinous sexual sin can remain in the Church, albeit in a reprobate state. Heresy not only loses one's grace, but also membership in the Church. Until this is rooted out of the new advent Church, she will not have the protection of the Holy Ghost, and if they throw out the gay mob, seven worse demons will take up residence.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church is indefectable as well as infallible. The Holy Spirit will never and has never ceased protecting Her. To claim otherwise makes Jesus a liar.
DeleteThis reboot of the Deformation will NEVER solve the problems in the Church. That crap has been tried before and thousands of denominations later it didn't solve the Problems of the 16th century church. St Pius V helped do that & so did Trent.
Also Protestantism is the bastard parent of relativism and liberalism so screw that. I am not going anywhere even if Pope Francis refuses to do the right thing.
I will not betray Christ. Death first!
God's will be done!
Wasn’t is St. Peter who blatantly defied Jesus’ command to kill and eat “unclean” animals? He also denied Christ three times, thought he was too good for gentiles, and was called Satan by Jesus Christ Himself. All I’m saying is that there has never been a Tradition in the Church of Papal Impeccability.
Delete“…thought he was too good for Gentiles…” - that is not what Galatians 2 says. And, we know of this incident from St Paul. What St Peter might have said in his defence, we are never told. All we have is St Paul going on about how wrong St Peter was.
DeleteCondemning people unheard is usually regarded as a serious form of injustice.
As for Acts 10, there was no “blatant defiance” - St Peter was unwilling to eat non-kosher food, because Deuteronomy 14 and other parts of the Pentateuch are extremely clear that the Israelites were forbidden to use certain living creatures as food. One as well expect Catholics who have had it beaten into them that they must never never never never speak ill of the clergy, to speak ill of the clergy.
Why should people who have been conditioned by their religious upbringing never to do X, be blamed for their reluctance to do X ?
The present scandals are of the Catholic Church’s own making. No-one else is responsible.
We appreciate your prompt attention to the recent revelations. Two observations. First, in last night's EWTN evening news it was claimed by the secretary of Benedict 16 that Benedict never sanctioned McCarric. Indeed, this is a possibility. If so it might explain the Pope's response. If it never happened the Pope could not have heard of it. But then, if true, why didn't the Pope just deny it?
ReplyDeleteSecondly, all the supporting documents reside in Vatican offices. How likely is it that the Vatican would dig them out and hand them over? This does not seem likely to me, since some of the principles mentioned by Vigano are in positions of power in the Vatican.
They only have power because we give them power. The practice of referring all abuse cases to Rome must stop. Abuse claims must be handled locally with the local authorities - period. Appeals to and discussions with Rome should only involve doctrinal issues.
DeleteIn addition, all local Vatican Embassies in any country should have their diplomatic status revoked and all documents contained should be seized by the local authorities. Vatican officials who have been involved in covering up, suppressing, or ignoring evidence of abuse should be treated as international criminals and warrants for their arrest should be issued.
The Vatican can no longer be treated as above the law. Documentation filed in local embassies should no longer be treated with diplomatic immunity. Or at the very least, non of those documents relating to child abuse and molestation should be classified in this way.
We can no longer be naive in our trust that Rome can handle such cases. They clearly cannot.
If anyone is to keep their faith, including myself, justice must be done. In this case, the doctrine of subsidiarity clearly applies.
Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.
That is not what was reported on EWTN, that is not what Bishop Ganswein said. He said that Benedict had not corroborated Vigano's testament. He did not deny the report by Ed Pentin, mentioned on the EWTN program, that Benedict remembered sanctioning McCarrick but could not recollect the exact nature of the sanctions. To repeat, Ganswein has said nothing whatever about Benedict's sanctioning or not sanctioning McCarrick, only that the New York Times report that Benedict had corroborated Vigano's testament was false.
DeleteBenedict has to corroborate or deny the Vigano report. Those who elsewhere jumped the gun saying it was corroborated did not do their cause any favors. On the otherside some idiot I once knew
Deletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/scottericalt/if-pope-francis-resigns-it-will-not-be-valid/
is saying the pressure from the public to get Francis to resign would be "invalid" and give us an anti-Pope.
Yeh ah NO!!! If Francis leaves then that is the end of it. This is as tedious as people who run around claiming Benedict is still the real Pope.
Holy Writ says you need two or three witnesses. So Benedict must speak to confirm or deny Vigano's claims. Then we can move on.
If PF were to be *pressured into abdicating*, his abdication would be unfree & invalid, and any election of an intended successor would be invalid. That is what Scott Eric Alt was arguing, surely rightly.
DeleteHere is another article with additional details on this topic. This is hugely important if accurate, since it would mean an invalid resignation on the part of Benedict, meaning he would even now still be Pope.
Deletewww.returntofatima.org/2015/09/was-pope-benedict-swifted/
While I certainly don't agree with you on everything, especially not the current Pope (but quite a bit of what you write regarding Thomistic philosophy), I have to say that Vigano's testimony should be taken seriously. None of those accused have endeared me to their cause via their reactions. In fact, I am more inclined to believe Vigano. I do however await more evidence, but the claims are certainly credible. I have noticed the press has dropped the story - they don't want people to know that a large part of the problem with abuse was pederasty (certainly not all - that claim would be disingenuous to the many other victims).
ReplyDeleteTwo homosexual popes and one a freemason (John XXIII and Paul VI) presided over Vatican II. Maybe Orthodox Catholics should return to the pre-Vatican II teaching of the Church?
ReplyDeletePost-Vatican II has promoted a flaccid Christianity and has been impotent in the culture wars.
I pity the naive drinking the nectar or should I say poison from Rome.
I love how you Radtrads & Sedes only see this as an opportunity to spread the horsecrap you couldn't sell during the reign of Pope St John Paul II.
DeleteYou are worst vultures then the anti-Catholic secular media. Give it a rest. BTW that Grand Jury report on sex abuse went all the way back to WWII! So was the Priestly abuse reported at that time the product of Vatican One now?
I repeat give it a rest.
Agreed 10000%
DeleteIt is well documented that P2-Freemasonry began infiltrating the Church prior to WWII.
DeleteI find it odd that the Freemasons conferred upon JPII their highest honor, all reflective of his actions in allowing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and even Satanist to worship together with Catholic clergy. This utter nonsense showed his hand that he was a freemasonic deist and not a God-fearing Pope who should be defending Christendom.
Vatican One bring it ON!
One wonders where Roswell fits into all that?
DeleteRoswell fits right in there with shilling for JPII and Vatican II.
DeletePolish Priest "Oko told LifeSiteNews that part of the problem is that up to 50 percent of American bishops have homosexual inclinations.”
I always thought Paul VI was a space alien.
DeleteExtra Ecclesiam nula salus. The idea of leaving the Church because Pope Francis may have deliberately protected sodomites is eternal insanity. As awful as Pope Francis' actions may be, as awful as sodomy is, it pales in comparison to sedevacantism, schism, heresy, and whatever else. These are the unforgivable sin, or at least the beginning of it. Scream for blood, if you must, but be consistent and cut yourselves first, like you've cut yourselves off from the Body of Christ.
Delete>"Oko told LifeSiteNews that part of the problem is that up to 50 percent of American bishops have homosexual inclinations.”
DeleteHow the hell would he even *know* that? Did they all have a meeting where they raised their hands or has the gadar finally been perfected?
Thank you, Dr. Feser, for your good work for the Church in these dark times. I appreciate your writings very much.
ReplyDeletePope Benedict must speak if Francis will not. He can either confirm or deny these charges and either Francis or Vigano will go down if he does. I cannot conceve Pope Benedict would lie.
ReplyDeletePope Francis' silence doesn't help him. The Papal Critics screwed up claiming Benedict "confirmed" Vigano testamony(not true) & Pentin had to walk that back and clear the air.
Francis is either guilty or not. If he is Benedict's silence only helps him and conservative over reach helps him. If he is innocent then what is being done to him is worst then any bad Poping he has done.
Benedict can clear this all up and must. If he doesn't this civil war will not end.
Ben, it wasn't Pentin who screwed that up. Tim Busch was interviewed in the Times saying it, and it was that to which Ganswein was responding. Pentin's claim in his original article was more precise and, so far as we know, accurate, and he didn't have to walk anything he said back.
DeleteI don't blame Pentin for anything. He is doing his job well. Of course if he can get Pope Benedict on the record.....
DeleteI'll buy him a drink.
(which is quite a promise coming from a cheapskate like moi)
In your linked article on "Papal falibility, you write,
ReplyDelete"Suffice it to emphasize for present purposes that, precisely because exercises of the pope’s ordinary Magisterium are infallible when they merely reaffirm the Church’s own constant and universal teaching, they too do not involve either the reversal of past teaching or the addition of some novelty.
Papal infallibility, then, is not some magical power by which a pope can transform any old thing he wishes into a truth that all are bound to accept. It is an extension of the infallibility of the preexisting body of doctrine that it is his job to safeguard, and thus must always be exercised in continuity with that body of doctrine. Naturally, then, the pope would not be speaking infallibly if he taught something that either had no basis in Scripture, Tradition, or previous magisterial teaching, or contradicted those sources of doctrine."
Now, let us review the much in the news boast of one Fr. Thomas Rosica, sometime Vatican spokesman, as found on his blog. This, as he expatiates on the Jesuit practice of "discernment", and Francis' new order of business.
I note "as found on his blog", as the Zenit presentation of his ruminations, specifically excised the relevant paragraph.
"Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture."
According to Rosica, there's a new sheriff in town, and he is entitled to make it up pretty much as he sees fit.
Everyone else is of course welcome to salute, and when told to jump, to inquire as to "How high?"
If any hope the secular media or a Cardinal or bishop are going to rescue the Church, then should now abandon that hope. There is no reason to imagine anything of the kind happening.
ReplyDeleteHe is not going to resign, obviously. There is apparently not going to be a loud and public cry from the terribly, scandalously, cowardly bishops who run our church. The Cardinals are clearly only thinking of their comfort and retirement in ease. The bishops, estimated to be 80% homosexuals, condone sodomy, and probably many of them have no problem in reality with sodomy of boys.
All past experience tells us that this pope and his evil minions, will simply wait out the crisis, wait for us to forget about it and move on.
We have a short time and a few opportunities. These are dire times, the most dire in church history, without a doubt.
Stop giving money to this evil organization. Nothing.
Consider not attending Mass, if only for the optics.
Press Callista Gingrich to demand McCarrick records or the US ambassador will leave and not return.
Press state AG's to do an investigation as PA did.
Press AG Sessions to consider RICO charges. Our church resembles a national and international child sex trafficking ring. The secular and even Catholic media are okay with this. Many Catholics are okay with this. These vile perpetrators have traveled the world on our dime, our parents and grandparent's dime, finding little boys in far flung places, whose parents are poor and unable to defend them, and they have inflicted their sexual perversions on these boys, as well as Western boys, and some girls.
We must not, cannot, forget these victims! A seminarian just released the information that he saw a crying 6 year-old boy emerging from a rectory "with semen all over his hair and face". Friends, for the sake of these children, the ones who have suffered, the ones who are suffering, the ones who will suffer, the ones who have committed suicide because they could suffer no more, we MUST fight these men with all we've got, and use whatever we've got to never let them forget, WE KNOW.
My God, if we will not do this for this purpose, how can we stand before God and say we did what we could?? Will we defend innocent boys and our OWN seminarians?? God give us that determination and the victory over these demonic predators! May they sink back into the earth from which they came, and if they will not, may we make them miserable as often as we possibly can.
If the Liberal media had to choose between saving a precieved liberal Pope vs dealing a body blow to the Church by getting him to resign well you know what they will choose.
DeleteThe left likes to eat their own(or whom they precive are their own).
I saw an article in CNN by a liberal calling on Pope Francis to resign. Of course that person was upset that in addition to the accusation of giving power to an abuser Pope Francis has failed to allow Women Priests, allow Abortion, and allow gay marriage etc....hysterical.
Personally I predict Pope Francis will be gone by the beginning of next year.
I also will keep repeating myself. Pope Benedict must speak out too. One word from him will save or condemn Francis because I can't believe would lie here.
Cheers.
>Press AG Sessions to consider RICO charges.
DeleteOnly if they do that to Hollyweird first. I don't trust the government.
Hollywood, every school-district in the country, every family in the country, every other Christian sect, every rabbinical organization…
DeleteEvery group on that list has at best the same rate of abuse as priests, most of them much worse. (Yes, even families: fully 10% of the abuse of minors is by biological fathers; another 28% is by some other man in a relationship with the victim's mother. We can't even actually say what minuscule percentage of abuse is by any clergy, none of whom have a lower rate than priests.) And every group covers up as much as the bishops at their worst; many school-systems are just reassigning abusers like the bishops were doing 20-30 years ago.
Where's the outcry? It's the thing Jonah Goldberg talked about recently, about how we don't care about third-world slavery or segregation in China, because their slavery and segregation don't matter to our politics. People don't care about abuse, or there would be 100 calls to investigate school districts under RICO for every call to investigate the bishops. There aren't: they only care about attacking the Catholic Church.
Sophia's Favorite, I agree with you except for one thing, and it is HUGE. No matter how much evil may be in the Church, the answer can NEVER be to skip Mass! That is a mortal sin against the third commandment. One reason it's mortal sin is that you cut yourself off from JESUS, who is present in every Mass, no matter how wicked the priest (to say otherwise is to fall into the Donatist heresy).
DeleteWe mustn't let our disgust for the evildoers in the Church draw us away from the One who is all-good, all-just, all-pure, and without whom we cannot be saved!
additional:
ReplyDeleteI did tell you people after the CP CCC thingy it could be worst and now it's worst.
Of course this can still get worst.
Anyway no screw ups. Cardinal Burke is doing it right.
& I repeat Benedict should speak of Francis won't.
This is just the fallout from ONE STATE - PA.
ReplyDeleteWhat everyone seems to be forgetting is that - there are still 49 other States to go.
Now just imagine the sordid details and the thousands of victims that are going to be revealed in the rest of the States. AND the obvious organized effort to shuffle these predators around between parishes. In fact, this scandal will most likely launch a Federal Investigation.
Now if anyone seriously thinks that the vast majority of people are just going to buy the laughable excuse that this Pope simply wasn't aware of an ongoing sexual conspiracy of this magnitude over this many decades - then I have some oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona.
BTW - can anyone name a sexual scandal that was ever this large?
Did anyone else read this:
ReplyDelete"What we did report, given by an inside source close to Benedict in July, was that Benedict had issued sanctions against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but was unable to remember their precise nature." (http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/ganswein-comments)
One can confirm that X did Y without asking X himself.
It would be better if he said it on the record and removed all doubt. The last thing we need is hersay. Benedict is the key.
DeleteGlad to see your input on this, Ed.
ReplyDeleteCupich is a fink. An odious fink. And any priss who tells me that "These men are your divine authorities, your princes and monarchs, and you have no place to question them" is going to get asked how many times they kneeled in front of McCarrick to get his "blessing".
Once again, I note that the only possible saving explanation for Francis' failings is that he's so incredibly stupid that everyone runs rings around him on a regular basis.
I think he's incompetent, sure. But not nearly as stupid as he needs to be in order for it to "save" him.
We've had enough.
Pope ignores it. It goes away. That simple.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone really think this Pope cares about his reputation among those he treats as enemies?
What is anyone going to do about it?
It is not going to go away. The people of Chile pressured him to change his tune. Catholics worldwide will not let this go. Again Benedict must speak if Francis won't. Francis has not done himself any favors.
DeleteAlso the Evangelical version of the ONION called THE BABYLON BEE did a parody about the Pope saying he will deal with this issues after he speaks about climate change.
Then Cupich goes from parody to reality.....
Stop helping Francis your eminence. For all our sakes.
Catholics will stop giving their money to the Church.
DeleteMeanwhile,it's just a matter of time before international authorities start focusing on the Vatican Bank as the primary money laundering vehicle behind this organized crime effort. AND seizing their assets. Good luck to Pope Frankie and his new bankrupt church of the poor.
"Usual Sycophants"....Ha! I like it. Even though you're borrowing from Mark Shea's repertoire of mocking monikers, your posting treats his ilk more graciously than he could ever muster towards you.
ReplyDeleteHere is Mark Shea's take on it. It looks "compelling" but it is hardly a solid air tight vindication.
Deletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2018/08/todays-new-facts-i-learned-about-the-palace-coup.html
No doubt someone could come up with some counter points and back and forth and back and forth etc.....(somebody please shoot me if that happens).
Benedict must speak and Mark will either jump for joy or he will be very unhappy.
This is not a left vs right or conservative vs liberal or heretics vs orthodox.
This we must rely on bare verifiable facts.
Mark Shea should've stopped after, "So I’m, like, blissfully unaware..." I am,
DeleteDidymus, Right Wing Culture Warrior
Good luck to Pope Frankie's sycophants dismissing this:
ReplyDeleteThe attorney general of Pennsylvania assures that the Vatican was aware of the cover-ups
The bishops "documented everything in secret archives they frequently shared" with Rome
The Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro , has assured on Tuesday that the Vatican was aware of the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors committed by Catholic priests in the US state, after having access to a series of secret files that reflect that several local bishops They shared information about it with the leaders of the Church in Rome.
Ah an Atheist troll come to help the Sedes, Protestants and other anti-Catholics.
DeleteGo kiss Harvey Weinstein.
Come on, obviously Democratic Party member Josh Shapiro is another conservative with a personal vendetta against the pope, and Francis need only take the "high road" against this latest attack.
DeleteThe Pennsylvania report treated every accusation as if it was a conviction, and had to go back to the Truman administration to puff up its numbers.
DeleteShapiro's mentor is currently in prison for corruption and abuse of office.
Really? You've got Vigano's testimony, and more, but it's the assurances of a forked-tongued master of the world's second oldest profession, and worse a Democrat, that I can't dismiss? I am,
DeleteDidymus, Apparent Pope Frankie Sycophant
1. Francis and Lavender Mafia cardinals resign or are deposed.
ReplyDelete2. Cardinal Sarah becomes next pope.
3. ???
4. Profit.
5. ????
Delete6. Protestants and atheists are finally burned at the stake like Christ would want!!!
Sorry for this off-topic comment, but do you prof. Feser have an audio recorded copy of your debate with Stuart on capital punishment? Please, say you do!
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is another bona fide Inquisition. The Church needs to take back control from the leftists and the homosexual Mafia.
ReplyDeleteResign?
ReplyDeleteWe had, what, 4 popes abdicate in 2000 years?
And now you think two will step down within 5 years? Let’s not hold our breath.
Whole bunch should've abdicated between Gregory XII and Benedict XVI, though. And probably some before, too.
DeleteVicar of Christ? He is the vicar of the devil.
ReplyDeleteI was not very happy when the previous pope resigned. I was not keeping track of his doings but he seemed like a good man and I thought he has his heart in the right place.
ReplyDeleteCupich needs to be investigated immediately. That sort of naked red herring is exactly what you would expect somebody with at least something to hide to say.
ReplyDeleteWe must resist the urge to make this a left vs right thingy. Or a conservative/trad vs liberal thingy. Or bore the poop out of me listening to other complain about Vatican II. Even a "liberal" Pope doesn't deserve to be smeared and a "conservative" orthodox one who did this would still need to resign.
ReplyDeleteBenedict must speak. Whoever else has hard evidence should give it. Let the Chips then fall where they may and God's Will be done.
The whole liberal vs conservative thingy. The National Catholic Reporter vs the Register whatever is tedious. It is a distraction.
Follow the evidence.
"The whole liberal vs conservative thingy. The National Catholic Reporter vs the Register whatever is tedious. It is a distraction."
ReplyDeleteI agree, but only because it's like reading Protestant vs "catholic" Church of England controversy from about 1600. In other words, they both bought the change of religion of the two prior generations, and now they're arguing two apparently different positions, both based upon false principles.
In the present case, the greatest single event in the history of the western Church occurred in 1969, the abandonment of the ancient liturgy in favour of a synthetic substitute, crafted with the aid of heretic (Protestant) consultors, and nearly everybody went along with it or lost the faith and ceased practicing, the latter essentially making themselves invisible. Something north of fifty thousand priests lost their vocations in the period 1965-75; it may have been as high as one hundred thousand. It was a tectonic event, and virtually nobody remembers it. Why? Possibly partly because the implications of tracing it to causes are too horrible to contemplate, but if we want to understand the corruption of the clergy in the wake of Vatican II, we need to face facts and grapple with their implications.
In brief, the Church always excluded those who were homosexually-inclined from the ranks of the clergy. This was not "hatred" but common sense. John XXIII changed this, and the result was a flood of these people into the clergy. The effects of that were manifold, including the staggering rise in abuse cases (look at the John Jay Report stats, graph them, note the cliff-like rise to phenomenal levels), and the culture of secret vice, blackmail, and general moral perversion, which turned many dioceses into clubs of bad men with no interest in the faith or really in the mission of the Church. The ultimate cause of this was the flippancy towards the faith that started with John XXIII; the same flippancy (it's impossible to use a less dramatic word for it) also led to the abandonment of the traditional liturgy. So that's your root cause, and the proximate cause of this particular crisis is homosexuality among the clergy. The "liberals" cannot face that fact, so they spend their time talking about celibacy, which is utterly irrelevant, and the "conservatives" are afraid of talking about homosexuality in too clear terms, but more importantly they cannot face the fact that POLICY change by what they consider to be a now-ancient pope (John XXIII) led directly to this crisis. Admit that, and they are forced to face the fact that he also brought us Vatican II, and ultimately (via his anointed successor Paul VI) the new mass. The ecclesiological implications are frightening, so they bury their heads in the sand. And that's why it's boring. There's nothing more boring than a discussion, supposedly serious, that will not attack causes.
Francis is so like John XXIII it's like a family descent. The employment of symbolic actions combined with confusing, and often contradictory, utterances is strikingly similar. Both posed as friendly, smiley, "not like those nasty people of the past" types, but both have a definite philosophy which is revealed most clearly in their actions. In Roncalli's case, it was the rehabilitation, in act rather than words, of the dodgy theologians who had been sanctioned under Pius XII. People saw, understood, and knew that the purity of the faith was no longer important.
“The ecclesiological implications are frightening, so they bury their heads in the sand. And that's why it's boring. There's nothing more boring than a discussion, supposedly serious, that will not attack causes.”
DeleteThat is exactly why the causes of this mess *have to* be faced. Prolonging the cowardice and evasion is no solution. If JP2 and J23 and P6 have to be de-canonised or de-beatified, that is fine by me. If dogmas have to be unsaid, so be it: I would rather the CC were hideously embarrassed by having to be unsparingly truthful and honest, than that the sewage from the Papacy should continue to corrupt and poison the Church.
Son of Ya'Kov has already sufficiently answered what you say.
DeleteYou mean the guy who spouts his theoretical position and then adds, "This we must rely on bare verifiable facts."? LOL!
DeleteWhy am I surprised that a bloke using a Hebrew name is contradicting himself and sowing confusion, all in a dogmatic tone?
According to the Grand Jury sex abuse in the Church went all the way back to WWII. Explain to me how that is the fault of Vatican II? Vatican II took place during the 60's not 40's.
DeleteAnyway your response is tedious.
Relying on the bare facts is rational. It requires some empiricism. Dr. Feser's latest Post provides the key. Release the relevant documents. Evidence not ideology or theology or philosophy. Thought those are important over all they are not important here in terms of verification.
>Why am I surprised that a bloke using a Hebrew name is contradicting himself and sowing confusion, all in a dogmatic tone?
Where have I claimed X and Not X being true at the same time and in the same sense? What have I said that is a contradiction? I do believe passionately in Aristotle's first principles. Do you?
Well?
>“The ecclesiological implications are frightening, so they bury their heads in the sand. And that's why it's boring. There's nothing more boring than a discussion, supposedly serious, that will not attack causes.”
Lovely let's first establish Francis' guilt or innocence with facts (& they are out there) then you can bore me to death with your weird simplistic belief "this is all Vatican II's " fault.
Aquinian, I wish there were a "like" feature on these comments, because I would give you an enthusiastic thumbs-up on your "go-to-the-root-of-it" analysis above. Very insightful reasoning, and articulately expressed. Thank you.
DeleteCardinal Billot, at the time of the Modernist crisis (under St. Pius X, just over 100 years ago) said that this is not so much a crisis of faith, as a crisis of reason. It was indeed a crisis of faith, and Billot was a chief figure in overcoming it, granting us another fifty years before the deluge, so what did he mean?
ReplyDeleteI think he was looking at faith vis a vis reason as grace is to nature; grace builds upon nature, and faith requires reason. This isn’t to say that a broken character cannot be repaired by grace, for in one sense that’s exactly what happens to all of us, but merely that the more broken and weak a character is naturally speaking, the more work there is for grace to do, and we should not expect miracles in the ordinary course of things. St. Paul was a nasty and faithless character when he was persecuting the Church, but he was an integral character, a man of strength, stability, and educated intelligence. There was something there for grace to build upon. The opposite is true of somebody like Francis Thompson, the poet, who never became more than a reed blowing in the wind, not because he lacked sincerity, good will, or even grace, and certainly not because he didn’t get what the spiritual life is, or even live it, but because he was so incredibly weak that he kept falling back into laudanum abuse. (Waugh paints such a character in Brideshead, Sebastian Flyte, who ends as well as could reasonably be expected – saved, but not really repaired, so to speak.)
The man who has lost hold of reason in the way that Hegelians, Kantians, and Humeans have – that is, a man that can hold two contradictory propositions at the same time – is not a sound subject in which faith can inhere. Grace can work a miracle by which such a man can HAVE the faith, but it’s always in danger, precisely because reasoned apologetics can never really support his faith, can never really answer his temptations to doubt, and because the objects of faith (i.e. the points of belief, such as the Incarnation, the Resurrection, etc.) don’t hang together as a logically consistent tapestry, but rather they are all of them individual points of “fideist” conviction. This is one reason that the Vatican Council of 1870 defined several fundamental truths of reason. Truths of reason were under widespread doubt or denial, and that endangered the faith itself. A generation later the Modernist crisis illustrated the point with acute clarity.
Vatican II was the collapse of faith that came from the battle for reason being lost to scientism (a form of superstition that is now almost universal in the West), and it was also the fruit of a successful conspiracy by the neo-Modernists. But the conspiracy could not have succeeded in a healthy Church.
There’s nothing the laity can do except choose to withdraw from the new Kantian/Humanist religion of Vatican II and return to tradition. I say to my Anglican friends, “Don’t be a martyr for Henry VIII. he made his choices five hundred years ago, you weren’t there and you are not responsible; don’t make yourself responsible by defending him and his legacy.” I say to modern Catholics, don’t be martyrs for John XXIII and his (very likely homosexual) successor, Paul VI. They fomented a revolution, and you shouldn’t feel that loyalty to the Church requires loyalty to them.
>I say to modern Catholics, don’t be martyrs for John XXIII and his (very likely homosexual) successor, Paul VI.
DeleteConspiracy theory nutter. Worst then some of the people accusing Vigano.
You should be taken as seriously as the Sede weirdos & I don't take them seriously.
I think I'm comfortable leaving the reader to decide which of our posts carries the greatest weight.
DeleteThanks for your time.
You are just spouting tedious SSPX propaganda. You people are vultures and parasites. You don't care about the current crisis or abuse you just what too promote your anti-Vatican II High Church Protestant nonsense.
DeleteGet in line Bozo behind the Sedes, Prots and Atheists who have shown up here to do the same.
Dr. Feser, you personally approve each of these comments, correct?
DeleteI fail to see what value Son of Ya'Kov is adding to these discussions. His posts appear to be either unsolicited advice to Francis and Benedict, unfounded predictions about contingent events, or psycho-analysis of people he doesn't find congenial.
He buddy I have been on this blog for years. You show up out of the blue hawking your "Paul VI" was a secret homosexual conspiracy theories and you sound no different the Sedes, anti-Catholic Protestants and Atheist sharks who are circling the wounded church.
Delete> psycho-analysis of people he doesn't find congenial.
You believe Paul VI was a secret homosexual.
I do not think Post Modernism is the fault of Kant and Hegel. However people misuse them for that purpose.
ReplyDelete“I say to modern Catholics, don’t be martyrs for John XXIII and his (very likely homosexual) successor, Paul VI. They fomented a revolution, and you shouldn’t feel that loyalty to the Church requires loyalty to them.”
ReplyDeleteBut it does require communion with them and submission to them. One cannot be a Catholic otherwise. Even if they are unmitigated scumbags. If a man is the legitimate reigning Pope, communion with him and submission to him is essential if one is Catholic. There is no getting around this. No matter how much it may hurt. If McCarrick were elected Pope tomorrow, he would be as genuinely the Successor of Peter & Vicar of Christ as any of the Popes.
"But it does require communion with them and submission to them."
ReplyDeleteJames, let's be real. I am a traditional Catholic, which means in brief that I hold fast to the old mass and sacraments, and decline to be bullied into accepting the synthetic novelties created in the late 'sixties in the context of massive heterodoxy and chaos in the Church. It is no part of this to attack anybody else, it is merely maintaining clear rights. (Irony of ironies, after decades of being told we were "disobedient" for failing to go along with the revolution, suddenly in 2007 we were told that the old mas had never legally been forbidden.) Especially it must be emphasised that contrary to the bullying lies of the past fifty years, none of this is the traditional Catholics' fault. NONE. We are without offence, except the "offence" of failing to be bullied.
So, I hope that your comment is not meant to be some kind of reversal of the situation, as though we were risking schism or some other offence, when actually we've done nothing. We've not moved, we're not the agressors, we have remained where we were. If there's schism, it's on the other side. The one who changes everything is responsible for the consequences, not the intended victims.
I see many comments online about how bitter traditionalists are. I don't see it myself, I find them just exemplary Catholics, going about saving their souls. The few who spend time online are faced with this incredible hypocrisy and dishonesty on the part of the Modernists and their enablers, and this hypocrisy and dishonesty is now so long-standing that it has become a venerable tradition in Novus Ordo Land.
You believe Pope St Paul VI was a secret homosexual. That is as looney as Pope Francis' choice to be silent.
DeleteYeh that is mad.
The orthodox haven't developed their theology in a 1000 years and they haven't changed their liturgy either. They suffer the same problems of liberalism, irrationality, post modernist crap etc......
Changing the externals will not change Catholics. Only Grace can do that.
>Francis is so like John XXIII it's like a family descent.
That is St John XXIII to you sir.
They are nothing alike.
"You believe Pope St Paul VI was a secret homosexual."
DeleteIt was widely rumoured at the time, then a French (if memory serves) journal published the allegation, and Montini, astonishingly, publicly denied it! Ignoring it, especially since it was only one obscure journal, would have been the advice of the Curia and anybody with good sense. Answering it only gave it gravity.
So yes, I think it's true. But I don't think it's proved, just judging on the balance of probabilities. Of course it helps to know that Montini was working with the Communists behind Pacelli's back, and that his father was a leftie, and that he decided in youth that he would imitate Vittorio Alfieri, the notorious freethinker... (See Peter Hebblethwaite's hagiographical biog of Paul VI).
I heard a rumor Pius IX was a secret Puppy murderer. That and one buck will get you a cup of coffee in my town.
DeleteDisordered & irrational extremists like youself have cried wolf since the 60's and now you look surprised when a wolf finally shows up and people don't believe you.
Here is the thing. There is always a wolf. Even if there was no Vatican II there would still be a wolf. Alexander VI and Sergus III didn't need a Vatican II to bonk their mistresses at the Vatican.
It's like idiots who claim Galileo was a great scientist. No he wasn't. He was no Copernicus and he was likely a plagiarist. He didn't offer proof (that came centuries later) he just guessed correctly.
Now jog on you have bored me.
>It was widely rumoured at the time, then a French (if memory serves) journal published the allegation, and Montini, astonishingly, publicly denied it! Ignoring it, especially since it was only one obscure journal, would have been the advice of the Curia and anybody with good sense. Answering it only gave it gravity.
DeleteSo yes, I think it's true. But I don't think it's proved, just judging on the balance of probabilities.
So Pope Paul VI publically denies he is gay instead of being silent and that "proves" he is guilty where as Pope Francis silent and refusal to deny does the opposite?
Only a Radtrad would employ that level of double think.
BTW I looked up the fellow who accused Paul VI in 1975. Roger Peyrefitte was his name. He had also accused Pius XII of being secretly gay. He liked teenage boys and openly harrassed them on the street. He was a gay right advocate. He wrote for scandal sheets and only made his charge the day after Paul VI upheld the Church's teaching on birth control, homosexuality and self abuse etc.
I love how you pass over all that & try to change the subject to claiming he was a secret Communist.
You sir are an extremist. You could get a neat job with some of Pope Francis' extremist defenders. You share their mentality.
"So Pope Paul VI publically denies he is gay instead of being silent and that "proves" he is guilty where as Pope Francis silent and refusal to deny does the opposite?"
ReplyDeletePaul VI didn't answer ANY criticisms, even those couched in the most abject language, beseeching mercy, by venerable old priests who were being brutally forced to abandon the mass of their ordination and instead adopt the new Protestant, man-centred, hippie liturgy of 1969.
But he answered this one, and fast, and announced a day of reparation for it. Remarkable.
Bergoglio is hyper-sensitive to criticism and responds accordingly, answering various allegations, as Dr. Feser has highlighted. Yet he won't answer this one. Remarkable.
Instead of abusing people like me, why not try and keep in mind that others are reading, forming their own judgements, and (especially since this is a philosophy blog) won't be influenced by that kind of gaslighting?
Dude you boy Peyrefitte who accused Paul VI of being gay also accused Pius XII of being gay. Why is he "truthful" in regards to the former but not the later? Or do you also believe Pius XII was a Puff too?
DeleteIf you are waiting for me to defend the silence of Pope Francis you will wait till crack of doom. But I won't hold my breath waiting for you to explain to me why I should believe some French atheist pederast who has made reckless charges against two Pope in good standing?
Here is the thing. Just because Pope Francis might be guilty of something does not make it open season on slandering Popes at will you silly fruitcake!
You cry like a snowflake over being "abused" but you abused the memory of Blessed Paul VI and gave credence to someone who slandered Pius XII of happy memory as well.
You are a base slanderer and the more you cry about it the more guilty you look. Much like the people whom Vigano has accused.
@Son of Ya'Kov
ReplyDeleteYou are a very unpleasant correspondent.
You posed an objection ("double think") and I answered it. You didn't attempt to refute my answer, you just added more abuse and sarcasm.
As I've said before to you, try and remember that others are reading, and they'll form their own judgements.
>You are a very unpleasant correspondent.
ReplyDeleteYou falsely accused Paul VI of being a homosexual based on the bogus testimony of a French Pederast who also accused Pius XII. What? Do you think if you called my own saintly Italian Mother a puttana to my own face I wouldn't verbally knock you on your arse? Here you are making specious and slanderous charges against a Blessed Pope who by definition is my spiritual Father.
You made a foe for life.
>You posed an objection ("double think") and I answered it. You didn't attempt to refute my answer, you just added more abuse and sarcasm.
It's blithering nonsense. I don't have to put in any effort answering Radtrad stupidity. The Atheist stupidity is tedious enough.
>As I've said before to you, try and remember that others are reading, and they'll form their own judgements.
I don't see anybody rushing to confirm your goofy charges against Paul VI. Not even the resident Sedes.
Here is something for them to judge. You accused Paul VI of being a homosexual based on charges made by an Atheist Pederast who wrote for scandal sheets
You are using the present scandal regarding Pope Francis to make specious slanders against the innocent.
It's goofy. If you can't see that I cannot help you.