Pope Francis's stunning blow to conservatives

....right from the beginning of his interview it is clear that he has turned his back on the fortress Catholicism of the last two popes: he quotes St Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, as saying that "Great principles must be embodied in the circumstances of place, time and people...."

....It is impossible to read this except as a criticism of his predecessor Benedict XVI, who once said the European civilisation reached its height in the 14th century....

....what he has done here is to make it impossible for reactionary bishops to demand that their priests clamp down on sexual sin among the congregation. The official teaching on sexuality is so wildly out of kilter with what most faithful Catholics believe and do, and so much felt to be contrary to what their consciences tell them, that he is pushing at an open door here. The parish priests are now freed to act as their consciences tell them.

The defeat of the church's conservatives is utterly comprehensive in this interview. All of their favourite causes are taken up and rejected – "It is not necessary to talk about … abortion, gay marriage and [contraception] all the time" says the pope. So much for the "culture of death" that Pope John Paul II thought he saw in those things....

Then the favourite trick (not least in England) of reactionaries complaining to Rome about their own suspiciously liberal bishops is pilloried.

Then he wants a greater role for bishops in church governance, overturning 50 years of attempted centralisation. He rebukes liturgical traditionalists, who want to return to the Latin mass. They can have "this sensitivity" respected, but the formation of cliques around the old liturgy is explicitly denounced.

...It is impossible to read this except as a criticism of his predecessor Benedict XVI, who once said the European civilisation reached its height in the 14th century....
....what he has done here is to make it impossible for reactionary bishops to demand that their priests clamp down on sexual sin among the congregation...The parish priests are now freed to act as their consciences tell them....
....The defeat of the church's conservatives is utterly comprehensive in this interview. All of their favourite causes are taken up and rejected – "It is not necessary to talk about … abortion, gay marriage and [contraception] all the time" says the pope. So much for the "culture of death" that Pope John Paul II thought he saw in those things....
....He rebukes liturgical traditionalists, who want to return to the Latin mass. They can have "this sensitivity" respected, but the formation of cliques around the old liturgy is explicitly denounced....

Don’t disagree — at least that the NYT would play fast and loose with any language that could be interpreted as undermining conservative principles — but whether the NYT puts their spin on what PF said or mainstream Catholic outlets strain to spin it as nothing new here (which I flatly reject — PF is the equivalent of having Obama in the Vatican), PF, unless he is patently naive or stupid, knew that his comments would be jumped on and presented in precisely this way. Just as the narratives that “Republicans are for the rich” and “Democrats are for the poor” remain unshakable despite the clear, abundant and easily accessible facts to the contrary, so has PF ensured that “the Church must change” will be the tagline for the Church in the public mind. The cover of Newsday today features a large photo of PF’s face over the triumphant cry, “the Church must change”. Try to explain what he “really meant”, try to parse it, try nuance, try to show people why it’s no different from what previous popes have said, etc. Does not matter. PF said what he said, he knew what he was saying, he knew how it would be spun, he intended it. What is most striking to me, as a devout Catholic, is his observation that the Church will collapse if it doesn’t change. Where has he been? The Catholic Church has been collapsing for decades now. And the liberals who have been wielding the sledgehammers causing this collapse believe, like all good liberals (see e.g., the Democrat party, Obama, Pelosi, Bill deBlasio, anyone in government in the state of NY, NJ, MA), that the answer is even bigger doses of the same degeneracy. So, yes, the NYT was twisting his words, but PF knew that they would say exactly what they’ve been saying and everyone would remember precisely what has been drilled into their minds in the last 24 hours: “the Church must change” If PF didn’t know this, the RC Church has bigger problems than the NYT.,

WHO REALLY IS POPE FRANCIS?

Pope Says Church Is ‘Obsessed’ With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Six months into his papacy, Pope Francis sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday with the publication of his remarks that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite recriminations from critics.

“Obsession” in defense the unborn baby and opposing abortion, the “most abominable of crimes”, as stated in Vatican II, is not a sin but a virtue, and Pastors of the Church who disparage those who fight for the unborn, are betraying one of the main tenets of the Catholic Church.

The BBC reported that Pope Francis turned down the red cape with ermine by saying this: “No thank you, Monsignore. You put it on instead. Carnival time is over!”
And he walked into the papal apartments and said “There’s room for 300 people here. I don’t need all this space.”

Isn’t to brag about your own humility denoting a form of arrogance? Isn’t Pope Francis in fact belittling the virtues of previous Popes?

Pope Francis: ‘I have never been a right-winger’

By Steve Ahlquist on September 19, 2013

In an almost direct rebuke to critics, including Rhode Island’s own Bishop Thomas Tobin, leader of the Providence Diocese, Pope Francis, in his first extensive interview since being elected to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has said, we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

Shouldn’t Bergoglio rather answer that a Pope must be above labels and state firmly and clearly that his duty is to defend unequivocally the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Magisterium of the Church?

What was the position Bergoglio had then regarding Liberation Theology?

He was completely against it. In fact, as Theology students, we had never studied a single book by, for instance, Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the founders of Liberation Theology, of by [Leonardo] Boff, or by Paulo Freire, with his studies on an education that is not a cultural “dependency” [of the “imperialistic powers”]. In Philosophy, we had read little, very little, of Heidegger and Kierkegaard, one single chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra... Not to mention Marx, Engels, Sartre, Foucault, the Post-Moderns, etc. Nothing that could contradict Catholic doctrine or dogmas. All that under strict orders of Jorge Bergoglio.

Bergoglio was against Liberation Theology… before he was for it. Why, otherwise, Leonardo Boff, the Maryknolls, and all the main advocates of Marxist Liberation Theology, are elated with the new Pope?

Did not know that about Benedict. At times it seems he really wanted to go back to the 14th. Century.

How so? Can you give us an example?

I can't find anything online from Benedict about "European civilization reach[ing] its height in the 14th century."

He quoted "14th-century Byzantine emperor who believed Islam is inherently violent," and some commenter on the Huffington Post accused him of wanting "to drag the church, kicking and screaming, back into the 14th century."

There was a schism in the 14th century and the last pope to resign did so then, but I don't see that Pope Benedict actually ever said that the 14th century was the high point of Western civilization.

Benedict may have believed that something was in decline in recent centuries, but pinpointing the highpoint way back then sounds a lot like journalistic sloppiness or malice.

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