Monday, September 23, 2019

'Breaking with the Pope'

My latest on Life Site.
The canon lawyer and journalist Edward Condon declared to his Twitter followers the other day, ‘If someone tells you the only way to be authentically Catholic is to break with the pope and the bishops, they are — at best — a Protestant’.
Perhaps I can help him out. Like Condon, I believe that Jorge Bergoglio was validly elected as pope and reigns today, as a matter of the law of the Church, as Pope Francis. Also like Condon, who has written extensively and often very well on recent crises in the Church, I have some concerns about some of the things which Pope Francis has done and said. Perhaps he and I also agree that it would be good if Pope Francis were to clarify some of his more puzzling remarks, even if Condon prefers not to clarify his own. 

1 comment:

  1. What "kind" of pope have we got.
    By definition, the pope, if he is pope, has a job one. It is to defend the doctrine of the faith so as to pass it along intact. That is his job. His job is not to fly around the world, nor give away the bones of St. Peter, nor get directly involved in politics and demand the West become an extension of Syria or Yemen or Somalia by taking in so many thousands of military aged men so as to change Europe into those areas.
    His job is not to criticize free market capitalism nor throw insults at entire nations he doesn't like, nor their president.

    He refuses to kneel before Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
    He insults faithful Catholics relentlessly.
    He teaches contrary to Catholic teaching and makes a mockery of tradition.
    He refuses to answer legitimate questions posed by Cardinals about his teaching on the faith, nor answer questions related to the homosexual scandals and Ted McCarrick.
    He has made it a matter of course for those in adultery or second marriages to receive Holy Communion.
    He has put minimized abortion, even said little about our current practice of murdering babies about to be born, but goes to pieces over Catholics who care deeply about the faith, tearing them to shreds.
    He has elevated known homosexuals into the most important positions in our church, and replaced faithful Catholic administrators with his own brand of progressives, turning those organizations into modernist shells.
    He has disbanded faithful religious communities, completely betrayed Chinese Catholics who now suffer persecution.
    He has demoted faithful clergy, going to pains to try to humiliate them.
    He has brought this Amazon synod, turned creation into a god, and now Catholics are to learn from pagans and "dialogue with spirits". He wants the church to have an "Amazonian face".
    I'm a Roman Catholic. I love the faith. I don't know what he is, although I suspect.
    I'm just waiting for God to deal with him.
    I cannot understand, at this point, anyone's reticence with saying the plain truth, if this man is a Catholic, someone prove it to us. If he is even a nominal Christian, offer proof. All indications are he is nothing of the kind. In fact, all evidence is the complete opposite.
    Why are some Catholics having any trouble with this at all? We have been told to avoid anyone coming preaching a different gospel. It should be fairly simple to identify his as a different gospel.

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