Pope Francis gives his annual Christmas address to the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. (Credit: Vatican Media)
Rome Newsroom, Dec 21, 2023 / 11:13 am (CNA).
Pope Francis warned the Roman Curia on Thursday that “rigid ideological positions” can be an obstacle to “moving forward.”
In his annual Christmas address to the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, the pope underlined that it is important to “keep faring forward, to keep searching and growing in our understanding of the truth, overcoming the temptation to stand still.”
“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis gives his annual Christmas address to the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
Pope Francis’ speech briefly touched on what he sees as the current division in the Catholic Church, rejecting the usual dichotomy of so-called “progressives” and “conservatives.”
“Sixty years after the Second Vatican Council, we are still debating the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ but that is not the difference,” Francis said.
Pope Francis gives his annual Christmas address to the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
“The real, central difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward.”
The pope, who turned 87 on Sunday, added that a zealous priest once told him that “it is not easy to rekindle the embers under the ashes of the Church,” noting that this advice “can also help us in our work in the Curia.”
Pope Francis has often used his annual December address, held in the Vatican’s gilded Hall of Benediction, to offer his frank perspective on the state of the Roman Curia.
Pope Francis meets with the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
In 2014, he famously diagnosed 15 spiritual “diseases” afflicting the Curia, including careerism and idolizing superiors. In 2020, the pope used the word “crisis” 44 times in his speech and called the Church to renewal.
In his 2023 Christmas greetings, Pope Francis did not speak of corruption or even allude to the historic Vatican trial that concluded on Saturday, which found a cardinal guilty of embezzlement of Vatican funds and sentenced him and other former Vatican employees to years in prison.
Pope Francis’ message instead focused on the importance of listening, discernment, and moving forward.
Discernment “can strip us of the illusion of omniscience, from the danger of thinking that it is enough simply to apply rules,” he said. “And from the temptation to carry on, even in the life of the Curia, by simply repeating what we have always done.”
The pope quoted the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a Jesuit theologian and archbishop of Milan from 1980 to 2004.
“As Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini once wrote: ‘Discernment is quite different from the meticulous exactitude of those who live in legalistic conformity or with pretensions to perfectionism. It is a burst of love that distinguishes between good and better, between what is helpful in itself and what is helpful here and now, between what may be good in general and what needs to be done now,’” he said.
“‘Failure to strive to discern what is best often makes pastoral life monotonous and repetitive: religious acts are multiplied, traditional gestures are repeated, without clearly seeing their meaning,’” Francis added, quoting Martini’s 2008 book “The Gospel of Mary.”
Following his custom, Pope Francis gave Vatican officials books as a Christmas gift during his meeting with cardinals of the Roman Curia on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
Following his custom, Pope Francis gave Vatican officials books as a Christmas gift. This year the pope gave them a book of his Christmas homilies and a copy of a book that he wrote titled “Santi, non mondani: La grazia di Dio ci salva dalla corruzione interiore” (“Holy, Not Worldly: God’s Grace Saves Us from Interior Corruption”).
The book on interior corruption is the same book he gave each of the Synod on Synodality delegates during the first week of the October assembly at the Vatican. It is a compilation of a text published by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2005 called “Corruption and Sin” and a strongly-worded letter that Pope Francis wrote to all priests in the Diocese of Rome on Aug. 5.
Pope Francis meets with the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, 2023, in the gilded Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
“The mystery of Christmas fills our hearts with awe … at an unexpected message: God has come, God is here in our midst, and his light has forever pierced the darkness of the world,” Pope Francis told the Curia.
“We need to hear and accept this message anew, especially in these days tragically marked by the violence of war, by the momentous risks posed by climate change, and by poverty, suffering, hunger … and all the grave problems of the present time. It is comforting to discover that even in those painful situations, and all the other problems of our frail human family, God makes himself present in this crib, the manger where today he chooses to be born and to bring the Father’s love to all.”
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Maureen McKinley milks one of her family’s goats in their backyard with help from three of her children, Madeline (behind), Fiona and Augustine on Monday, Aug. 2, 2021. McKinley and her family own two goats, chickens, a rabbit, and a dog. / Jake Kelly
Denver Newsroom, Aug 10, 2021 / 16:32 pm (CNA).
With five children ages 10 and under to care for, and a pair of goats, a rabbit, chickens and a dog to tend to, Maureen and Matt McKinley rely on a structured routine to keep their busy lives on track.
Chores, nap times, scheduled story hours – they’re all important staples of their day. But the center of the McKinleys’ routine, what focuses their family life and strengthens their Catholic faith, they say, is the Traditional Latin Mass.
Its beauty, reverence, and timelessness connect them to a rich liturgical legacy that dates back centuries.
“This is the Mass that made so many saints throughout time,” observes Maureen, 36, a parishioner at Mater Misericordiæ Catholic Church in Phoenix.
“You know what Mass St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Augustine were attending? The Traditional Latin Mass,” Maureen says.
“We could have a conversation about it, and we would have all experienced the exact same thing,” she says. “That’s exciting.”
Recent developments in the Catholic Church, however, have curbed some of that excitement. On July 16, Pope Francis released a motu proprio titled Traditiones custodis, or “Guardians of the Tradition”, that has cast doubt on the future of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) – and deeply upset and confused many of its devotees.
Pope Francis’ directive rescinds the freedom Pope Benedict XVI granted to priests 14 years ago to say Masses using the Roman Missal of 1962, the form of liturgy prior to Vatican II, without first seeking their bishop’s approval. Under the new rules, bishops now have the “exclusive competence” to decide where, when, and whether the TLM can be said in their dioceses.
In a letter accompanying the motu proprio, Pope Francis maintains that the faculties granted to priests by his predecessor have been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”
Using the word “unity” a total of 15 times in the accompanying letter, the pope suggests that attending the TLM is anything but unifying, going so far as to correlate a strong personal preference for such masses with a rejection of Vatican II.
Weeks later, many admirers of the “extraordinary” form of the Roman rite – the McKinleys among them – are still struggling to wrap their minds and hearts around the pope’s order, and the pointed tone he used to deliver it.
Maureen McKinley says she had never considered herself a “traditionalist Catholic” before. Instead, she says she and her husband have just “always moved toward the most reverent way to worship and the best way to teach our children.”
“It didn’t feel like I became a particular type of Catholic by going to Mater Misericordiæ. But since the motu proprio came out, I feel like I have been categorized, like I was something different, something other than the rest of the Church,” she says.
“It feels like our Holy Father doesn’t understand this whole group of people who love our Lord so much.”
McKinley isn’t alone in feeling this way. Sadness, anger, frustration, and disbelief are some common themes in conversations among those who regularly attend the TLM.
They want to understand and support the Holy Father, but they also see the restriction as unnecessary, especially when plenty of other more pressing issues in the Church abound.
Eric Matthews, another Mater Misericordiæ parishioner, views the new restrictions as an “attack on devout Catholic culture,” citing the beauty that exists across the rites recognized within the Church. There are seven rites recognized in the Catholic Church: Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean.
“It’s the same Mass,” says Matthews, 39, who first discovered the TLM about eight years ago. “It’s just different languages, different cultures, but the people that you have there are there for the right reasons.”
Eric and Geneva Matthews with their four children. / Narissa Lowicki
Different paths to the TLM
The pope’s motu proprio directly affects a tiny fraction of U.S. Catholics – perhaps as few as 150,000, or less than 1 percent of some 21 million regular Mass-goers, according to some estimates. According to one crowd-sourced database, only about 700 venues – compared to over 16,700 parishes nationwide – offer the TLM.
Also, since the motu proprio’s release July 16, only a handful of bishops have stopped the TLM in their dioceses. Of those bishops who have made public responses, most are allowing the Masses to continue as before – in some cases because they see no evidence of disunity, and in others because they need more time to study the issue.
But for those who feel drawn to the TLM – for differing reasons that have nothing to do with a rejection of Vatican II – it feels as if the ground has shifted under their feet.
Maureen McKinley wants her children to understand the importance of hard work, of which they have no shortage when it comes to their urban farm. After morning prayer, Maureen milks the family’s goats with the help of the children. Madeline (age 10) feeds the bunny; Augustine (7) exercises the dog; John (6) checks for eggs from the chickens; and Michael (4) helps anyone he chooses.
With a noisy clatter in the kitchen, the McKinleys eat breakfast, tidy up their rooms, and begin their daily activities. They break at 11 a.m. to head to daily Mass at Mater Misericordiæ, an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), where they first attended two years ago.
Matt, 34, wanted to know how the early Christians worshipped.
“The funny thing about converts is they’re always wanting more,” says Maureen, who was, at first, a little resistant to the idea of attending the TLM because she didn’t know Latin. “Worship was a big part of his conversion.”
Maureen agreed to follow her husband’s lead, and they continued to attend the TLM. What kept them coming back week after week was the reverence for the Eucharist.
“Matt had a really hard time watching so many people receive communion in the hand at the other parish,” says Maureen. “He says he didn’t want our kids to think that that was the standard. That’s the exception to the rule, not the rule.”
Reverence in worship also drew Elizabeth Sisk to the TLM. A 28-year-old post-anesthesia care unit nurse, she attends both the Novus Ordo, the Mass promulgated by St. Paul VI in 1969, and the extraordinary form in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her parish, the Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, offers the TLM on the first Sunday of the month.
Sisk has noticed recently that more people in her area — especially young people who are converts to Catholicism — are attending both forms of the Mass. While the Novus Ordo is what brought many of them, herself included, to the faith, she feels that the extraordinary form invites them to go deeper.
“We want to do something radical with our lives,” Sisk says. “To be Catholic right now as a young person is a really radical decision. I think the people who choose to be Catholic right now, we’re all in. We don’t want ‘watered-down’ Catholicism.”
Elizabeth Sisk stands in front of Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina.
With the lack of Christian values in the world today, Sisk desires “something greater,” which she says she can tell is happening in the TLM.
Many TLM parishes saw an increase in attendance during the pandemic, as they were often the only churches open while many others shut their doors or held Masses outside. This struck some as controversial, if not disobedient to the local government. For others, it was a saving grace to have access to the sacraments.
The priests at Erin Hanson’s parish obtained permission from the local bishop to celebrate Mass all day, every day, with 10 parishioners at a time during the height of the COVID pandemic.
“We were being told by the world that church is not necessary,” says Hanson, a 39-year-old mother of three. “Our priest says, ‘No, that’s a lie. Our church is essential. Our salvation is essential. The sacraments are essential.’”
Andy Stevens, 52, came into the Church through the TLM, much to the surprise of his wife, Emma, who had been a practicing Catholic for many years. Andy was “very adamantly not going to become Catholic,” but was happy to help Emma with their children at Mass. It wasn’t until they attended a TLM that Andy began to think differently about the Church.
“He believed that you die and then there is nothing, and he never really spoke to me about becoming a Catholic,” says Emma, 48, who was pregnant with their seventh child at the time.
Andy noticed an intense focus among the worshippers, which he recognized as a “real presence of God” that he didn’t see anywhere else. After the birth of their 7th child, he joined the Church.
All 12 of the Stevens’ children prefer the TLM to the Novus Ordo.
Emma and Andy Stevens with their 12 children in Oxford, England.
“It’s a Mass of the ages,” says their eldest son, Ryan, 27. “I can feel the veil between heaven and earth palpably thinner.”
A native of Chicago, Adriel Gonzalez, 33, remembers attending the TLM as a child, which he did not particularly like. It was “very long, very boring,” and the people who went to the TLM were “very stiff and they could come off as judgmental” towards his family, he says.
Gonzalez, who also attended Mass in Spanish with his family, didn’t understand the differences among rites, since Chicago was a sort of “salad bowl, ethnically,” he says, and Mass was celebrated in many languages and forms.
He took a step back from faith for some time, he says, noting that he had a “respectability issue” with the Christianity he grew up with. He watched as some of his friends were either thoughtless in the way they practiced their faith, or were “on fire,” but lacked intentionality. When he did come back to the faith, it was through learning about the Church’s intellectual tradition.
He spent time in monasteries and Eastern Catholic parishes with the Divine Liturgy because there was “something so obviously ancient about it.” He decided to stay within the Roman rite with a preference for a reverent Novus Ordo.
When he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Gonzalez committed to his neighborhood parish, which had a strong contingent of people who loved tradition in general. The parish instituted a TLM in the fall of 2020, when they started having Mass indoors again after the pandemic.
Hallie and Adriel Gonzalez.
“If I’m at a Latin Mass, I’m more likely to get a sense that this is a time-honored practice, something that has been honed over the millennia,” he says. “There is clearly a love affair going on here with the Lord that requires this much more elaborate song and dance.”
For Eric Matthews, the TLM feels a little like time travel.
“It could be medieval times, it could be the enlightenment period, it could be the early 1900s, and the experience is going to be so similar,” he says.
“I just feel like that’s that universal timeframe – not just the universal Church in 2021 – but the universal Church in almost any time period. We’re the only church that can claim that.”
What happens now?
The motu proprio caught Adriel Gonzalez’ attention. He sought clarity about whether his participation in the extraordinary form was, in fact, part of a divisive movement, or simply an expression of his faith.
If it was a movement, he wanted no part of it, he says.
“As far as I can tell, the Church considers the extraordinary form and the ordinary form equal and valid,” says Gonzalez. “Ideally, there should be no true difference between going to one or the other, outside of just preference. It shouldn’t constitute a completely different reality within Catholicism.”
With this understanding, Gonzalez says he resonated with some of the reasoning set forth in the motu proprio because it articulated that the celebration of the TLM was never intended to be a movement away from the Novus Ordo or Vatican II. Gonzalez also emphasized that the extraordinary form was never supposed to be a “superior” way of celebrating the Mass.
Gonzalez believes the Lord allowed the growth in the TLM “to help us to recover a love for liturgy, and to ask questions about what worship and liturgy looks like.” He would have preferred if what was good was kept and encouraged, and what was potentially dangerous “coaxed out and called out.”
Mater Misericordæ Catholic Church in Phoenix, Arizona. / Viet Truong
Erin Hanson, of Mater Misericordiæ, agrees.
“If [Pope Francis] does believe there is division between Novus Ordo and traditional Catholics, I don’t think he did anything to try to fix that division,” she says.
Hanson would like to know who the bishops are that Pope Francis consulted in making this decision, sharing that she doesn’t feel that there is any of the transparency needed for such a major document. If there are divisions, she says, she would like the opportunity to work on them in a different way.
“This isn’t going to be any less divisive if he causes a possible schism,” Hanson says.
According to the motu proprio and the accompanying letter, the TLM is not to be celebrated in diocesan churches or in new churches constructed for the purpose of the TLM, nor should new groups be established by the bishops. Left out of their parish churches, some are worried their only option to attend Mass will be in a recreation center or hotel ballroom.
Eric Matthews hopes that everyone is able to experience the extraordinary form at least once in their life so they can know that this is not about division.
“I can’t imagine someone going to the Latin Mass and saying, ‘This is creating disunity,’” he says. “There’s nothing to be afraid of with the Latin Mass. You’re just going to be surrounding yourself with people that really take it to heart.”
Maureen McKinley was home sick when her husband Matt found out about the motu proprio. He had taken the kids to a neighborhood park, where he ran into some friends who also attend Mater Misericordiæ. They asked if he had heard the news.
“I felt disgust at a document that pretends to say so much while actually saying so little and disregards the Church’s very long and rich tradition of careful legal documents,” Matt McKinley says.
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix stated that the TLM may continue at Mater Misericordiæ, as well as in chapels, oratories, mission churches, non-parochial churches, and at seven other parishes in the diocese. Participation in the TLM and all of the activities of the parish are so important to the McKinleys that they are willing to move to another state or city should further restrictions be implemented.
For now, their family’s routine continues the same as before.
At the end of their day, the McKinleys pray a family rosary in front of their home altar, which has a Bible at the center, and an icon of Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary. They eat dinner together, milk the goat again, and take care of their evening animal chores. After night prayer, the kids head off to bed, blessing themselves with holy water from the fonts mounted on the wall before they enter their bedroom.
“The life of the Church springs from this Mass,” Maureen says. “That’s why we’re here—not because the Latin Mass is archaic, but that it’s actually just so alive.”
ACI Prensa Staff, May 1, 2023 / 10:30 am (CNA).
A court has decreed that preliminary proceedings be initiated to investigate a group of artists for “the possible existence of a criminal offense” aga… […]
39 Comments
Pope Francis wants to canonize Martini who was -is- a Modernist.
After a decade of verbal and emotional abuse spewing garbage like the heretical innovations of the late Cardinal Martini, I bet most of the Curia subjected to this humorless hammering went straight out afterward to get a martini.
Alas, about being “rigid,” PROGRESSIVISM IS THE DEEPEST RUT OF ALL.
About which, Ratzinger offered this about the ideological theologians:
“Monocracy, the sole rule of one person, is always dangerous. Even when the person in question acts out of great ethical responsibility, he can stray into unilateral positions and become RIGID [!] [….] Theology is interpretation […]When it no longer interprets but, so to speak, lays hands on the substance of the faith and alters it [!] by inventing a new text for itself [!], it ceases to be theology” (The Nature and Mission of Theology, Ignatius, 1995).
What we have with the blessing of gay couples (rather than individual persons) is nothing less than a GALILEO MOMENT! How different history might have been (!), and now again seems doomed to become in the future!
Consider this remark from a still-inquisitive astronomer of Galileo’s day, Fr. Grienberger, SJ:
“If Galileo had only known how to retain the favor of the Jesuits [!], he would have stood in renown before the world, he would have been spared all his misfortunes, and he could have written what he pleased about everything, even about the motion of the earth” (in Giorgio de Santillana, “The Crime of Galileo,” [1955], “The Problem of the False Injunction”; p. 290 with footnote: a confidential admission documented in one of Galileo’s letters).
So much for today’s hybrid “Jesuit spirituality.”) How simple, instead, to just bless persons as individuals rather than now as couplings.
But, good company…Galileo “walking together” WITH Strickland, Burke, Muller, the bishops of Malawi, Zambia and Kazakhstan, and others who are at least cautious as in the United States, and the peasant laity just as in the troubled days following Nicaea, when some 80 percent of the bishops woke to find themselves Arians.
This poor man is a fount of confusion. I don’t think Bergoglio knows the definition of ideology or the reality of sin. There is no “forward” – there is only Christ crucified and resurrected and he will return again on day.
Bilbo setting out on the road that goes ever on. At the Gilded Hall of Blessings His Holiness appears an effigy. “Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward. We are called instead to set out and journey following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads”. Heartened by Tucho the Wizard. The game is up. A surprise only that it occurs so soon. No more hedging or double talk now. Saruman [played by the late Card Carlo Maria Martini of St Gallen fame wizardry] will suffer no laggards.
Humor if only to lighten the tragedy of what may be the beginning of the end at a time when we celebrate the end and the beginning, “the end of this year of grace and the beginning of the next, setting us once again on the path that will make present Christ in all of the mysteries of His Redemption” (Sisters of Carmel). Ye faint-hearted, take courage and fear not. Behold, our God will come and save us (Communion verse, 3rd Sunday of Advent).
All rigidities are equal, but some rigidities are more equal than others.
Judging from a long career of watching gamesmanship among secular politicians, part of me senses that for this name-calling ecclesial game (with love eclipsing truth), the wheels are starting to come off. Maybe overreach from Fernandez is an ironic gift from the chaotic workings of the real Holy Spirit.
I’ve concluded he’s rigidly committed to two things. Achieving recognition in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of times in a row he can create aphorisms for “moving forward”, wherever the magical land of forward happens to be, while continuously insulting those who do not “move forward”, and his second commitment is to continue as a low-faith, if any, narcissistic ideologue while calling faithful non-ideological Catholics faithless narcissistic ideologues without any awareness of irony and never be called out for it to his face. Actually, there is evidence in this latest disaster, in paragraph 25, that he considers God to be a narcissistic ideologue as well, given that Catholics believe, that is, as Catholics know, the moral order comes from our creator and is not a contrivance of narcissistic and authoritarian elitism as this document insists.
The Bergoglian Papacy will go down in history as known, not for its love of Christ and the salvation of souls, but for its Weaponized Ambiguity. For this, Christ Himself told us, He will spit them out of His mouth.
As far as I’m concerned, Bergoglio has forfeited any and all moral authority to exercise the Petrine ministry
Accurate Roman Catholic theology is the product of prayerful reflection upon Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the perennial Magisterium. It is nothing less than a support for freedom for the individual and entirely liberating.
Fiducia Supplicans is a clear exhibition of rigidity. Its citations are primarily Bergoglian — 65% of the 31 provided in the document. Divine Revelation ceased with the death of St. John the Evangelist. There are no biblical references provided. From whence does this new teaching emerge?
Rigid ideological perspective is the product of a mind unconformed to the Truth.
The poetic dissonance employed as a defense of this document and its erroneous content is simply disturbing.
We read here the Pope’s attempt to establish a defense for Fiducia Supplicans: “The real, central difference [between “progressives” and conservatives] is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward….” emerges from the Chair of St. Peter?
We reason as Catholics, not as adolescents.
Franklin Graham provided a rebuke today to the Vatican. It is a moment in the history of Catholicism that will not soon be forgotten.
With this document Pope Francis undermines not only Divine Revelation and moral theology, but the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning. Is this what he intends? Whether or not, it he and his righthand man have accomplished it – at least in the short term.
James, Yes, but try as he may, no way does Francis undermine “Divine Revelation and the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning.”
Francis has ATTEMPTED to undermine Roman Catholic reasoning and Divine Revelation. Francis’ actions in fact demonstrate only that has has major deficits of intellect, faith and reason. He has acted unjustly toward Christ and toward those who love Christ. Francis’ actions manifest a great, progressively increasing rigidity and inability to Love the Savior.
Meanwhile, the Savior/Judge awaits Francis. As pope, Francis has openly, brazenly, yet inconspicuously(?) revealed himself as small-minded, uncharitable, unjust. Francis has, progressively and with great rigidity, failed in the job The Word Made Flesh graciously allows him to hold for a few more days, weeks, months or years [God forbid.]: “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. Strengthen thy brothers.”
The present incumbent of The Chair of St Peter has * directional confusion! *
His ministry is to help Catholics: “Move upwards!”, to be more spiritual & less worldly; not to “Move forward” with the world, in defiance of The Holy Spirit.
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
….Ten years later…
Rigid ideological positions
After a decade, I am starting to think that the Pope wants us to not have
Rigid ideological positions
Umm…
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Rigidity in thought, word, and action prevents ongoingness and togetherness. Life is a dynamic movement forward.
Since I can’t ask Francis, I’ll ask you. Where is the magical land of forward? Does forwardist thinking mean doing more things that used to be thought of as evil, as per God’s endowed truth, will now become good? I know Francis believes morality can change. Do You as well? Does
God need to shape up, change His mind, and follow along? This is something else Francis believes, do you as well? Could Hitler and Stalin, or perhaps Charles Manson have been right after all? Will being a murderer or a rapist become a new form of prophesy in some distant future after some “rethinking” about morality? Tell us. Backwardists need to know. Have mercy on poor backwardists who believe such things that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
“Life is a dynamic movement forward.” Quo vadis?
“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” – Shunryu Suzuki
This pontificate has long since sailed out and sunk.
Rather than a dichotomy between conservatives and progressives, he seems to be setting up a dichotomy between those whose reason is ruled by their passion, and those whose passion is ruled by their reason.
“Pope Francis’ Christmas gift to the church was finally confirming that he is a heretic and quite likely an antipope,” wrote X user Nathaniel Eliason, whose bio describes him as Catholic. “He must be opposed completely now, and any bishop who doesn’t is complicit.”
This is SO typical – he comes up with crazy ideas like blessing same-sex couples and when people object, he immediately characterizes them as having “rigid ideological positions” or some such nonsensical accusation, thereby putting those who disagree with him – and there are MANY of us – in a bad light.
After the sex abuse crisis in which the John Jay study reported that 80% of the reported abuse cases were homosexual acts between priests and post-pubescent boys (ephebophilia), we now have come to this, blessing for gays. Jesus came to find and gather the lost sheep of Israel. Francis is hell-bent on perniciously dividing and scattering his flock. I’ll keep my eyes on Jesus, rigidly so.
The inattentive reader will miss the clever evasiveness of the recent Declaration—sidestepping the rigorous infallibility requirements, and much like the faithy sola Scriptura Martin Luther who edited the Letter of James to omit the word “works,” and this only after he relented to include James in his version of Scripture.
About the narrow requirements, the Catholic convert (!) John Newman shined a more damning light that Brother Brian when he (Newman) looked further back than very recent history:
“What have excommunication and interdict to do with infallibility? Was St. Peter infallible on that occasion at Antioch when St. Paul withstood him? Was St. Victor infallible when he separated from his communion the Asiatic Churches? Or Liberius when in like manner he excommunicated Athanasius? And, to come to later times, was Gregory XIII, when he had a medal struck in honour of the Bartholomew massacre? Or Paul IV in his conduct towards Elizabeth? Or Sixtus V when he blessed the Armada? Or Urban VIII when he persecuted Galileo? No Catholic ever pretends that these Popes were infallible in these acts” (from a Letter to the Duke of Norfolk [1876], in Vincent Blehl (ed.), The Essential Newman [New York: Mentor Omega, 1963]. 269).
But, thank you brother Brian for yet another predictable tutorial.
But also worthy of pause…It’s almost as if Luther’s false dualism between faith and works is being aped today in the false dualism between love and truth (or “backwardists”). Makes me wonder about Hinduism and whether James Martin is the reincarnation of namesake Martin Luther?
“The real, central difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward.”
Pace this man’s warped understanding of love, the difference is between those who live by the truth and those who live by lies.
Few among the faithful pay him much mind anymore, except to roll their eyes and wave him off in disgust. When will the cardinals, who have pledged to defend the faith with their own blood, have the spine to rise up? No, they all sit there panting like a bunch of lapdogs waiting to be petted. They won’t even risk their careers, let alone their blood and lives for the faith. All decked out in red, these cowards should be draped in yellow.
Moving forward is a relative term. Forward toward where? The language does not reflect Biblical language or teaching. Christ’s messages are clear – He doesn’t speak vaguely. “Moving forward” is something one puts on a bumper sticker in election year.
With humility, dare one say that the Pope is so rigid to as not being able acknowledge his own rigidity? There should be a concentration on what allows the flourishing of Christ’s love amidst humanity. Tall order, I know. Sin gets in the way. Good old selfish and arrogant sin.
Roughly 130 years from Galileo’s death to the suppression of the Jesuits. Perhaps it was better for him the way it actually went, he stayed to the Will of God.
If I worked in the Curia I’d avoid the annual papal Christmas meeting with Francis like the plague. I’d even schedule a root canal without anesthesia to avoid his annual gripe session with the people he’s chosen who are supposed to be his collaborators. This “rigidity” shtick got old fast long ago: the only “rigid” person around Rome seems to be Francis and his syncophants who demand the rigidity of Gumby (exc. when it comes to their “pastoral developments”).
Pope Francis wants to canonize Martini who was -is- a Modernist.
After a decade of verbal and emotional abuse spewing garbage like the heretical innovations of the late Cardinal Martini, I bet most of the Curia subjected to this humorless hammering went straight out afterward to get a martini.
Alas, about being “rigid,” PROGRESSIVISM IS THE DEEPEST RUT OF ALL.
About which, Ratzinger offered this about the ideological theologians:
“Monocracy, the sole rule of one person, is always dangerous. Even when the person in question acts out of great ethical responsibility, he can stray into unilateral positions and become RIGID [!] [….] Theology is interpretation […]When it no longer interprets but, so to speak, lays hands on the substance of the faith and alters it [!] by inventing a new text for itself [!], it ceases to be theology” (The Nature and Mission of Theology, Ignatius, 1995).
What we have with the blessing of gay couples (rather than individual persons) is nothing less than a GALILEO MOMENT! How different history might have been (!), and now again seems doomed to become in the future!
Consider this remark from a still-inquisitive astronomer of Galileo’s day, Fr. Grienberger, SJ:
“If Galileo had only known how to retain the favor of the Jesuits [!], he would have stood in renown before the world, he would have been spared all his misfortunes, and he could have written what he pleased about everything, even about the motion of the earth” (in Giorgio de Santillana, “The Crime of Galileo,” [1955], “The Problem of the False Injunction”; p. 290 with footnote: a confidential admission documented in one of Galileo’s letters).
So much for today’s hybrid “Jesuit spirituality.”) How simple, instead, to just bless persons as individuals rather than now as couplings.
But, good company…Galileo “walking together” WITH Strickland, Burke, Muller, the bishops of Malawi, Zambia and Kazakhstan, and others who are at least cautious as in the United States, and the peasant laity just as in the troubled days following Nicaea, when some 80 percent of the bishops woke to find themselves Arians.
This poor man is a fount of confusion. I don’t think Bergoglio knows the definition of ideology or the reality of sin. There is no “forward” – there is only Christ crucified and resurrected and he will return again on day.
Bilbo setting out on the road that goes ever on. At the Gilded Hall of Blessings His Holiness appears an effigy. “Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward. We are called instead to set out and journey following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads”. Heartened by Tucho the Wizard. The game is up. A surprise only that it occurs so soon. No more hedging or double talk now. Saruman [played by the late Card Carlo Maria Martini of St Gallen fame wizardry] will suffer no laggards.
Humor if only to lighten the tragedy of what may be the beginning of the end at a time when we celebrate the end and the beginning, “the end of this year of grace and the beginning of the next, setting us once again on the path that will make present Christ in all of the mysteries of His Redemption” (Sisters of Carmel). Ye faint-hearted, take courage and fear not. Behold, our God will come and save us (Communion verse, 3rd Sunday of Advent).
All rigidities are equal, but some rigidities are more equal than others.
Judging from a long career of watching gamesmanship among secular politicians, part of me senses that for this name-calling ecclesial game (with love eclipsing truth), the wheels are starting to come off. Maybe overreach from Fernandez is an ironic gift from the chaotic workings of the real Holy Spirit.
I’ve concluded he’s rigidly committed to two things. Achieving recognition in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of times in a row he can create aphorisms for “moving forward”, wherever the magical land of forward happens to be, while continuously insulting those who do not “move forward”, and his second commitment is to continue as a low-faith, if any, narcissistic ideologue while calling faithful non-ideological Catholics faithless narcissistic ideologues without any awareness of irony and never be called out for it to his face. Actually, there is evidence in this latest disaster, in paragraph 25, that he considers God to be a narcissistic ideologue as well, given that Catholics believe, that is, as Catholics know, the moral order comes from our creator and is not a contrivance of narcissistic and authoritarian elitism as this document insists.
The Bergoglian Papacy will go down in history as known, not for its love of Christ and the salvation of souls, but for its Weaponized Ambiguity. For this, Christ Himself told us, He will spit them out of His mouth.
As far as I’m concerned, Bergoglio has forfeited any and all moral authority to exercise the Petrine ministry
Frankly, I’m getting tired of Pope Francis’ rigidity.
Accurate Roman Catholic theology is the product of prayerful reflection upon Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the perennial Magisterium. It is nothing less than a support for freedom for the individual and entirely liberating.
Fiducia Supplicans is a clear exhibition of rigidity. Its citations are primarily Bergoglian — 65% of the 31 provided in the document. Divine Revelation ceased with the death of St. John the Evangelist. There are no biblical references provided. From whence does this new teaching emerge?
Rigid ideological perspective is the product of a mind unconformed to the Truth.
The poetic dissonance employed as a defense of this document and its erroneous content is simply disturbing.
We read here the Pope’s attempt to establish a defense for Fiducia Supplicans: “The real, central difference [between “progressives” and conservatives] is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward….” emerges from the Chair of St. Peter?
We reason as Catholics, not as adolescents.
Franklin Graham provided a rebuke today to the Vatican. It is a moment in the history of Catholicism that will not soon be forgotten.
With this document Pope Francis undermines not only Divine Revelation and moral theology, but the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning. Is this what he intends? Whether or not, it he and his righthand man have accomplished it – at least in the short term.
James, Yes, but try as he may, no way does Francis undermine “Divine Revelation and the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning.”
Francis has ATTEMPTED to undermine Roman Catholic reasoning and Divine Revelation. Francis’ actions in fact demonstrate only that has has major deficits of intellect, faith and reason. He has acted unjustly toward Christ and toward those who love Christ. Francis’ actions manifest a great, progressively increasing rigidity and inability to Love the Savior.
Meanwhile, the Savior/Judge awaits Francis. As pope, Francis has openly, brazenly, yet inconspicuously(?) revealed himself as small-minded, uncharitable, unjust. Francis has, progressively and with great rigidity, failed in the job The Word Made Flesh graciously allows him to hold for a few more days, weeks, months or years [God forbid.]: “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. Strengthen thy brothers.”
Pope Francis warned the Roman Curia on Thursday that “rigid ideological positions” can be an obstacle to “moving forward.”
True, Francis, but morally bankrupt progressive ideologies do that also, in case you weren’t clear about that.
Right on, dear ‘Athanasius’.
The present incumbent of The Chair of St Peter has * directional confusion! *
His ministry is to help Catholics: “Move upwards!”, to be more spiritual & less worldly; not to “Move forward” with the world, in defiance of The Holy Spirit.
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
….Ten years later…
Rigid ideological positions
After a decade, I am starting to think that the Pope wants us to not have
Rigid ideological positions
Umm…
Pope Clichémeister is creatively uncreative.
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Rigidity in thought, word, and action prevents ongoingness and togetherness. Life is a dynamic movement forward.
What gobbledygook!
Since I can’t ask Francis, I’ll ask you. Where is the magical land of forward? Does forwardist thinking mean doing more things that used to be thought of as evil, as per God’s endowed truth, will now become good? I know Francis believes morality can change. Do You as well? Does
God need to shape up, change His mind, and follow along? This is something else Francis believes, do you as well? Could Hitler and Stalin, or perhaps Charles Manson have been right after all? Will being a murderer or a rapist become a new form of prophesy in some distant future after some “rethinking” about morality? Tell us. Backwardists need to know. Have mercy on poor backwardists who believe such things that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
“Life is a dynamic movement forward.” Quo vadis?
“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” – Shunryu Suzuki
This pontificate has long since sailed out and sunk.
Rather than a dichotomy between conservatives and progressives, he seems to be setting up a dichotomy between those whose reason is ruled by their passion, and those whose passion is ruled by their reason.
Vacuous poetics worthy only of the Bergoglian school.
Bergoglio’s refusal to perceive his own “rigid ideology” is a terrifying sign of spiritual blindness.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/pope-francis-same-sex-couples-catholic/2023/12/20/id/1146680/
“Pope Francis’ Christmas gift to the church was finally confirming that he is a heretic and quite likely an antipope,” wrote X user Nathaniel Eliason, whose bio describes him as Catholic. “He must be opposed completely now, and any bishop who doesn’t is complicit.”
Does rigid ideological positions include Peronism? Just asking!
More gobbledygook mumbo-jumbo socialist
leftist nonsense from the not-the pope…
This is SO typical – he comes up with crazy ideas like blessing same-sex couples and when people object, he immediately characterizes them as having “rigid ideological positions” or some such nonsensical accusation, thereby putting those who disagree with him – and there are MANY of us – in a bad light.
Plus ca change, plus la meme.
After the sex abuse crisis in which the John Jay study reported that 80% of the reported abuse cases were homosexual acts between priests and post-pubescent boys (ephebophilia), we now have come to this, blessing for gays. Jesus came to find and gather the lost sheep of Israel. Francis is hell-bent on perniciously dividing and scattering his flock. I’ll keep my eyes on Jesus, rigidly so.
I have completely had it with Pope Francis.
All popes are infallible…..until they aren’t.
Said Brother Brian, infallibly…
The inattentive reader will miss the clever evasiveness of the recent Declaration—sidestepping the rigorous infallibility requirements, and much like the faithy sola Scriptura Martin Luther who edited the Letter of James to omit the word “works,” and this only after he relented to include James in his version of Scripture.
About the narrow requirements, the Catholic convert (!) John Newman shined a more damning light that Brother Brian when he (Newman) looked further back than very recent history:
“What have excommunication and interdict to do with infallibility? Was St. Peter infallible on that occasion at Antioch when St. Paul withstood him? Was St. Victor infallible when he separated from his communion the Asiatic Churches? Or Liberius when in like manner he excommunicated Athanasius? And, to come to later times, was Gregory XIII, when he had a medal struck in honour of the Bartholomew massacre? Or Paul IV in his conduct towards Elizabeth? Or Sixtus V when he blessed the Armada? Or Urban VIII when he persecuted Galileo? No Catholic ever pretends that these Popes were infallible in these acts” (from a Letter to the Duke of Norfolk [1876], in Vincent Blehl (ed.), The Essential Newman [New York: Mentor Omega, 1963]. 269).
But, thank you brother Brian for yet another predictable tutorial.
But also worthy of pause…It’s almost as if Luther’s false dualism between faith and works is being aped today in the false dualism between love and truth (or “backwardists”). Makes me wonder about Hinduism and whether James Martin is the reincarnation of namesake Martin Luther?
You have no idea what you are talking about. Get a brain.
Olson’s sieve must have developed a tear or gone missing. How else would you have gotten in??
Fundamentalist Brian chiming in again, directing his Oedipal rage at the pope. Nothing new here folks 🙄
“The real, central difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward.”
Pace this man’s warped understanding of love, the difference is between those who live by the truth and those who live by lies.
Right? Caritas in Veritate wasn’t that long ago. Only those who believe the truth know which way forward is.
Few among the faithful pay him much mind anymore, except to roll their eyes and wave him off in disgust. When will the cardinals, who have pledged to defend the faith with their own blood, have the spine to rise up? No, they all sit there panting like a bunch of lapdogs waiting to be petted. They won’t even risk their careers, let alone their blood and lives for the faith. All decked out in red, these cowards should be draped in yellow.
Brilliantly put, jpfhays!
Moving forward is a relative term. Forward toward where? The language does not reflect Biblical language or teaching. Christ’s messages are clear – He doesn’t speak vaguely. “Moving forward” is something one puts on a bumper sticker in election year.
With humility, dare one say that the Pope is so rigid to as not being able acknowledge his own rigidity? There should be a concentration on what allows the flourishing of Christ’s love amidst humanity. Tall order, I know. Sin gets in the way. Good old selfish and arrogant sin.
Roughly 130 years from Galileo’s death to the suppression of the Jesuits. Perhaps it was better for him the way it actually went, he stayed to the Will of God.
If I worked in the Curia I’d avoid the annual papal Christmas meeting with Francis like the plague. I’d even schedule a root canal without anesthesia to avoid his annual gripe session with the people he’s chosen who are supposed to be his collaborators. This “rigidity” shtick got old fast long ago: the only “rigid” person around Rome seems to be Francis and his syncophants who demand the rigidity of Gumby (exc. when it comes to their “pastoral developments”).