Vatican City, Jul 13, 2017 / 11:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An analysis piece published Thursday in La Civilta Cattolica, discusses what it calls a “surprising” and unfortunate alliance between conservative Catholics and evangelicals in the U.S. on issues such as immigration – suggesting the two are in direct opposition to Pope Francis’ message of mercy.
The article, published online July 13, is co-authored by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, editor in chief of the Jesuit publication, and Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor who is editor in chief of the Argentine edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s newspaper.
Both men are regarded as confidantes of Pope Francis. La Civilta Cattolica is also seen as a mouthpiece of sorts for the Holy See, as its text is revised and approved by the Vatican Secretariat of State before it is published.
Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa start from the US motto, In God We Trust, saying that for some this “is a simple declaration of faith,” but for others it is “the synthesis of a problematic fusion between religion and state, faith and politics, religious values and economy.”
The authors hold that in recent decades American politics have been shaped by “religion, political Manichaeism and a cult of the apocalypse.”
They cite President George W. Bush’s speaking of the “axis of evil” and the US’ duty to “free the world from evil” as an example of what they call “a Manichaean language that divides reality between absolute Good and absolute Evil.”
Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa trace these to the evangelical-fundamentalist movement which becan in the early 20th century, and tie them to the consideration of the US as “a nation blessed by God.”
“They do not hesitate to base the economic growth of the country on a literal adherence to the Bible,” they write. “Over more recent years this current of thought has been fed by the stigmatization of enemies who are often ‘demonized.’”
Fundamentalism has developed an exegesis which decontextualizes the Old Testament without being “guided by the incisive look, full of love, of Jesus in the Gospels,” they write, adding that “within this narrative, whatever pushes toward conflict is not off limits.”
“Another interesting aspect is the relationship with creation of these religious groups that are composed mainly of whites from the deep American South,” Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa state. “There is a sort of ‘anesthetic’ with regard to ecological disasters and problems generated by climate change. They profess ‘dominionism’ and consider ecologists as people who are against the Christian faith.”
Ecological problems are regarded by fundamentalists as signs of the apocalypse, they write, which “confirm their non-allegorical understanding of the final figures of the Book of Revelation and their apocalyptic hope in a ‘new heaven and a new earth.’”
The authors find a prophetic formula to this worldview, characterizing it as charged to “fight the threats to American Christian values and prepare for the imminent justice of an Armageddon, a final showdown between Good and Evil, between God and Satan.”
They also cite Rousas Rushdoony, a 20th century Protestant pastor, in this regard, and note his influence on Steve Bannon, who is chief strategist in the Trump administration.
Rushdoony supports, they say, the subjection of public norms to religious morals and a “theocratic necessity” which “submit(s) the state to the Bible with a logic that is no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism.”
Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa then treat of the prosperity gospel and the rhetoric of religious liberty, first citing Norman Vincent Peale, another 20th century Protestant pastor. Peale authored The Power of Positive Thinking and was close to President Donald Trump, as well as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
In the section treating of the prosperity gospel, they also speak about “a particular form of proclamation of the defense of ‘religious liberty.’”
“The erosion of religious liberty is clearly a grave threat within a spreading secularism,” they write. “But we must avoid its defense coming in the fundamentalist terms of a ‘religion in total freedom,’ perceived as a direct virtual challenge to the secularity of the state.”
Next, the authors describe what they call a “fundamentalist ecumenism” developing between evangelical fundamentalists and “Catholic Integralists”, who they say are “brought together by the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere.”
They note that some Catholics “express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals … Both Evangelical and Catholic Integralists condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.”
For Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa “the most dangerous prospect for this strange ecumenism is attributable to its xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations.”
They describe this as a paradoxical “ecumenism of hate” which contrasts with Pope Francis’ “ecumenism that moves under the urge of inclusion, peace, encounter and bridges. This presence of opposing ecumenisms – and their contrasting perceptions of the faith and visions of the world where religions have irreconcilable roles – is perhaps the least known and most dramatic aspect of the spread of Integralist fundamentalism.”
“Here we can understand why the pontiff is so committed to working against ‘walls’ and any kind of ‘war of religion.’”
In the article, Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa argue that “(t)he religious element should never be confused with the political one.”
“Confusing spiritual power with temporal power means subjecting one to the other…There is a need to flee the temptation to project divinity on political power that then uses it for its own ends,” they say.
As an example, they point to the “shocking rhetoric” of Church Militant, a website formerly known as Real Catholic TV, which changed its name to in 2012 after being told by the Archdiocese of Detroit that it did not have permission to describe itself as “Catholic.”
Church Militant and its founder Michael Vorris are known for their controversial positions. Vorris has claimed on one of his programs that only faithful Catholics should be allowed to vote. In 2011, Vorris was banned from speaking at any facility owned by the Diocese of Scranton, Penn.
Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa noted that the group portrayed the U.S. elections as a “spiritual war,” creating “a close analogy between Donald Trump and Emperor Constantine, and between Hilary Clinton and Diocletian.” By suggesting that Trump’s victory could be attributed to the prayers of Americans, Church Militant portrayed “a divine election,” they said.
“This warlike and militant approach seems most attractive and evocative to a certain public, especially given that the victory of Constantine – it was presumed impossible for him to beat Maxentius and the Roman establishment.”
A truly Christian theopolitical plan would be eschatological, they said.
“And this is why the diplomacy of the Holy See wants to establish direct and fluid relations with the superpowers, without entering into pre-constituted networks of alliances and influence.”
In contrast, Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa say, Pope Francis “radically rejects the idea of activating a Kingdom of God on earth as was at the basis of the Holy Roman Empire and similar political and institutional forms, including at the level of a ‘party’.”
They also warn that fear of chaos and a breakdown of order is what “underlies the persuasive temptation for a spurious alliance between politics and religious fundamentalism.”
Political success becomes assured by “exaggerating disorder” and “agitating the souls of the people by painting worrying scenarios beyond any realism,” they say. At this point, religion becomes “a guarantor of order.”
Pope Francis, however, is fighting against “the manipulation of this season of anxiety and insecurity,” they say. The Pope “gives no theological-political legitimacy to terrorists, avoiding any reduction of Islam to Islamic terrorism. Nor does he give it to those who postulate and want a ‘holy war’ or to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire.”
“(T)he Christian roots of a people are never to be understood in an ethnic way,” Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa say. “Triumphalist, arrogant and vindictive ethnicism is actually the opposite of Christianity.”
[…]
A battle made to be culturally regional by Europeans is more a convulsion of our universal human nature to a toxin detrimental to life.
Our Mystical Body envelopes a multicultural humanity, Europeans the first to receive the Gospels from Jerusalem, freed from ancestor worship, minds opened to discovery and order. At a time when Europe reached a zenith, speculation and loss of faith it degraded intellectually. Its power extended south to Africa and with it its Christian faith.
Missionaries remained the vibrant manifestation of Christ to the world Africa emerging from life in a primordial environment responded with a sense of deliverance. Despite slavery, inhuman exploitation the African spirit endured, thrived. Christ, for the African, was deliverer and model. Homosexuality had its devastating effect in the heart of Africa men subject to brutal conditions imposed by Europeans and Muslims. Disease, Aids killed many.
African prelates like Ambongo have no time for intellectually sophisticated arguments, readily perceived as affectations and hollow. Merely weak excuses for the depravity of the once noble European character. The European missionaries that taught and died to bring them the faith left them with lasting, heroic examples of the faith.
Rather than the backward African as perceived from the jaundiced vision of men like Cdls Jean-Claude Hollerich, Walter Kasper Cardinals such as Ambongo and his episcopal confreres, through the mysterious workings of the Spirit possess the vision of Christ.
Finally, a Catholic bishop who can speak out boldly against the homosexualist agenda in the Church. Maybe other bishops can find the courage to do likewise. Doubtful, but we’ll see.
A relief to hear again from Cardinal Ambongo, and may we hear more from St. Augustine’s Africa and many others. Other particular Church’s within the universal Catholic Church also rejected Fiducia Supplicans, many from Europe:
Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Peru, the Netherlands, Ukraine, parts of Spain and Argentina, the Coptic Church, and even the Orthodox Churches, including Metropolitan Hilarion from Budapest of the Russian Orthodox Church, who expressed “great shock when he read this document.” Very ecumenical! And then, there are still others: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-priests-scholars-ask-church-leaders-to-request-the-pope-withdraw-fiducia-supplicans/
Cardinal Mueller, the former Prefect for the Congregation (now split in two and demoted to a dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith, even addressed the question whether Cardinal Fernandez’s fanciful Fiducia Supplicans crossed the line into heresy, or not (not a formal heresy, but an enabler): https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/02/does-fiducia-supplicans-affirm-heresy
And, at least nine dioceses in France.
Romans 1:26-27
New International Version
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The fact that a Catholic cardinal affirming an ages-old teaching of the Catholic Church would be worthy of a news story shows once again…
The Bergoglio legacy lives on.
Pope Leo XIII, pray for us.
Cardinal Ambongo: “Opposition to same-sex blessings not an ‘African exception'”.
Hear, hear.
Heteropraxy, like Sfiducia Supplicans, is a form of cruelty. If our sins are blessed, then they are not forgiven but retained. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23).
Unrepentant grave sin prevents union with God. Wanting to “bless” mortal sin is never loving. Sfiducia Supplicans is a form of adultery, enabling separation from Christ, the Bridegroom. In this way, Sfiducia Supplicans shares the pastoral errors of Amoralist Laetitia seeking force Communion with God to our grave sins.
It has been said that the demons drive sodomites to commit their sin. But since this sin is so heinous and repulsive, that even the demons, because of their original angelic nature, flee in revolt as the act commences.
When God does respond to our sinfulness, it will be especially brutal for these who, in their self-proclaimed pride, mocked God by flaunting this sin in His face for so long, and even worse for those within His Catholic Church who sided with them.