I was inspired decades ago when the CDF swatted Hans Kung off of his academic perch. Unfortunately, he just fluttered his tweedy feathers and found himself a different perch.
Hence the need for the laity to keep slingshots always at the ready.
Posted on 03/23/2013 1:18:12 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
The Inquisition!
The Holy Office!
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith!
Whichever name it has used, this is the arm of the Vatican that oversees the doctrinal integrity of the Faith. It watches, with eagle eyes, the goings on of theologians and other suspects around the world.
Its staff is omnipresent, with sub-offices in every country and in most major dioceses. Its minions send daily reports to headquarters, where countless clerical workers do nothing but input information into massive databases.
Very little escapes the CDF’s attention—and nothing of consequence. Its efficiency is the envy of national intelligence services. Its power may exceed that of the pope himself.
. . . or so the story goes.
In fact, the CDF has a staff so small that it verges on the ludicrous. To oversee doctrinal integrity in a Church of 1.2 billion members, the CDF relies on a staff of—hold your hat—89. (That's not a typo.)
The head of the CDF is a German cardinal, Gerhard Mueller. He is assisted by a secretary, Archbishop Luis Ferrer, and an under-secretary, Msgr. Damiano Caotorta.
The three of them are assisted by 25 cardinals, archbishops, and bishops who are the formal members of the Congregation.
These 28 are assisted by 33 staff members, consisting of priests, religious, and laymen.
And these 61 people are assisted by 28 consultors, which is to say advisors.
So there you have it: 89 people, some of whom are part-timers, trying to oversee a Church of 1.2 billion people—and all from a single building, the Palace of the Holy Office, built in the 1920s and situated a few steps from St. Peter's Square. There are no branch offices, no agents in the field, no suites of data-entry clerks, no massive databases. So little manpower does the CDF have that it’s a wonder the staff manages to discipline even the most egregiously heterodox public figures.
The CDF is not remotely what many people imagine it to be. If it has an organizational fault, it's that it's far too small. The problem isn't that it's omnipresent but that it's almost entirely omni-absent.
....There are no branch offices, no agents in the field, no suites of data-entry clerks, no massive databases. So little manpower does the CDF have that it’s a wonder the staff manages to discipline even the most egregiously heterodox public figures. The CDF is not remotely what many people imagine it to be. If it has an organizational fault, it's that it's far too small. The problem isn't that it's omnipresent but that it's almost entirely omni-absent.
Which might explain why nobody expects them.
“NOOOOOOOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!! OUR CHIEF WEAPON IS FEAR, FEAR AND SURPRISE… OUR TWO, OUR TWO MAIN WEAPONS ARE FEAR, SURPRISE, AND A RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY OUR THREE, THREE MAIN WEAPONS ARE FEAR, SURPRISE, RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY, AND AN ALMOST FANATICAL DEVOTION TO THE POPE… AH. AMONGST OUR WEAPONRY ARE SUCH DIVERSE ELEMENTS AS… I’LL COME IN AGAIN.”
Stick up a website and I’d donate to it, plus send them tips on who I’d like tortured.
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I was inspired decades ago when the CDF swatted Hans Kung off of his academic perch. Unfortunately, he just fluttered his tweedy feathers and found himself a different perch.
Hence the need for the laity to keep slingshots always at the ready.
They didn’t go far enough with him, they should have anathematized him.
I lived with a guy that read all of his books and thought he was the second coming of Jesus along with Father Hessburgh.
Rather sad to see the son of Polish immigrants who suffered under Communism be so sanctimonious and obsessed with crypto-Marxist liberation theology.
There needs to be a "but wait, there's more!"
I'm stealin' it!
Hesburgh may have done more harm to the Catholic Church than any individual since Pope Alexander VI.
He and Drinan anti-evangelized the Kennedies -— this is literally true -— schooled, re-tooled, and convinced them to be pro-abortion in the early 70’s. Tom Bethel wrote about this. Did you know Ted Kennedy (now gone to his eternal-— desserts-—) used to be, or posed and portrayed himself to his constitutents as, a principled anti-abortion pol and defender of “the Sanctity of Life”?
At least Matthew Fox had the honesty to bail and become an Episcopalian.
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