Posted on 05/06/2014 2:53:42 PM PDT by BlatherNaut
Cardinal Rodriguez-Maradiaga, “head” of the group of 8 cardinals hand-picked to advice Pope Francis, had this to say recently, regarding the direction of Francis’ papacy (I add some highlights to the statement):
The Honduran archbishop, who chairs the Council of Cardinals (C8) that advises the Pope, said Francis “feels called to construct” a Church that is, among other things: “At the service of this world by being faithful to Christ and his Gospel; free from all mundane spirituality; free from the risk of being concerned about itself, of becoming middle-class, of closing in on self, of being a clerical Church; able to offer itself as an open space in which all can meet and recognise each other because there is space for dialogue, diversity and welcome in it.”
This is straight out of the progressive zeitgeist. The bit about being “middle-class,” or bourgeoisie, I think tips the hand too much. It’s not just “Church of the poor” boilerplate, it is something more significant.
But the last part…..”able to offer itself as an open space in which all can meet and recognise each other because there is space for dialogue, diversity and welcome in it“……that’s what the Church is for? And I thought it was to save souls!
This is yet another disturbing, strongly left-wing statement from Cardinal Maradiaga. There is nothing here about holiness of eternal salvation, just worldly do-goodery, which is certainly important, but not the primary raison de etre for the Church. This is in fact a radical re-definition of how the Church has always viewed Herself. It reveals yet again the degree to which the progressive elements in the Church feel empowered and liberated today after a few years of being stymied by the previous pope(s?).
I would argue that being “at the service of the world” and the Church serving as “an open space in which all can meet and recognize each other (what does that even MEAN?!?) because…….dialogue, diversity!” is a veritable definition of mundane spirituality. Was there ever a time when spirituality was more mundane than the 70s and 80s? And is this not a program to not just return to that tragic time, but to go beyond it in terms of banality and spiritual Barron-ness? Heh.
And isn’t an effort to construct a new Church a sign of the Church, in the form of a few of its leaders, being obsessively “concerned about itself.” Irony, anyone? In fact, progressives have long claimed that the Church must cease being so concerned about itself, all the while keeping their gaze steadily locked on their own ideological navels. This is not a fresh idea, this is the same progressive klaptrap that’s been pushed for over 50 years.
What kind of hubris drives someone, even a pope, to think he is called to “construct” or, put another way, radically reshape and “improve” what he received from a patrimony of 2000 years? I pray this is just a badly misguided cardinal spouting off, and that he is not reliably reporting Pope Francis’ intentions. If he is…….yikes. And yet, this is not the first time Cardinal Maradiaga has said some disconcerting things, and there has not been even a slight rebuke of his advocating for further revolution in the Church.
Is the rhetoric about being an open space for “diversity” a sign of further collapse on the defense of moral Dogmas, this time regarding sodomy? Is there to be “dialogue” and understanding for traditional Catholics? How about the FFI?
I find this discourse hardly distinguishable from some of the worst pablum from socialist parties around the world.
I guess the real question is, does any of this matter? How significant is it that it comes from the head of the elite eight cardinals?
Can these people really want to return, and even go beyond, the disastrous practices that served as the direct cause of millions leaving the Faith over the past several decades?
Is there anyone as blind as an ideologue?
The Vatican II Church hasn't been about saving souls for decades now.
All men make errors and this pope and his eight are no different. They need to examine their words. All of the translating and retranslating is getting old. They sound like the Obama mouthpiece, Carney.
These men aren’t making errors. They know exactly what they’re saying.
And he's always referred to the poor not only as those poor monetarily, but also poor at heart. But, yes, we do need to help all the poor of the world. That doesn't mean it has to be done in a leftist, Socialistic way. Capitalism and good jobs will help the most. It's just a fact that we find ourselves in horrible economic times right now.
That is all well and good but do you ever hear any of this “dialogue” and “diversity” talk coupled with the need to convert to the one true Faith?
This is all the result of rejecting total Biblical inerrancy over the course of the last hundred years.
I also think when you have a Pope and an adviser that are used to the abject poverty seen growing up and working in a 3rd world banana republic, well they see “poor” a little differently then we see it. Yes, the
Pope wishes to help the poor, and in many ways the Church has strayed from that mission.
You certainly have a point. However. Past popes spoke English well enough that they did not have to have their every word called a “mis-translation”, by their defenders.
“My personal Priest, who is in his 70’s... “
You are very fortunate to have a personal priest - even an older one. We always had to share just one with the entire church.
"There is a gestalt-shift in Lumen Gentium, from the Church focusing on the salvation of souls, preparing them for an eternal after-life, to the Church focusing on spreading the social aspects of the Gospel within this world, now. ... I have tried to explain the strategic vision of Vatican II as a transcendental-pragmatic constructed in a phenomenological way. The ecclesial image, or myth, of the People of God is the theme chosen by the Council to exemplify this new modality of religious reflection. The "theory" of this notion of the Church may be found in Lumen Gentium, but this "theory" finds its concrete, mundane horizon (or applied practical sense) in Gaudium et Spes. In order to be incarnated in today's dislocated world, however, the People of God must assume their global responsibilities as the functionally operative Catholic paradigm for human progress and development."
CARDINAL MADARIAGA ‘S POISONOUS FRUIT
By John Zmirak
10 Noviembre 2013
Vaticanologists are making much of a major speech by one of the eight cardinals the pope has designated as leaders of reform, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga
The speech is ambitious: It offers a comprehensive re-reading of the Church’s role in politics, and of the government in economics. The cardinal makes bold, sweeping assertions in a tone as confident as Karl Marx or Ayn Rand: “With the New Evangelization we restart (start anew) from the beginning: we once more become the Church as proclaimer, servant, and Samaritan.”
Does the cardinal really mean that the Church ever ceased to be these things? If so, when? And by what authority does the speaker makes this implicit attack on all his predecessors? By the experience of the Church in Latin America, where large swaths of his flock have fled to Pentecostalism?
Which popes, precisely, is he accusing here:
The rest of the article
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/cardinal-maradiagas-poisonous-fruit.html#
“Your theology helps the transformation of Latin America more than millions of books on Marxism” Fidel Castro to Leonardo Boff and Frei Beto in the presence of the Spanish Bishop in Brazil, Pedro Casáldiga, C.M.F., who plays end the phrase in his book Nicaragua, combat and prophecy, Madrid, helped, 1986, p.134
“The Mission of the Jesuits in the third world is to create conflict. We are the only powerful group in the world that makes it.” César Jerez S. J., provincial of Central America 1976-1982, at a meeting of Jesuits in Boston, New England Jesuit News, April, 1973.
“At the same time we Christians are children of a Virgin and a whore (Ivan Illich) and believe that this is the truth.” Ernesto Cardenal, priest and then Minister of Nicaragua, in the biography of J. L. González, Salamanca, “Follow me”, 1978, p.23
“Are the Communists, and not the Jesuits, who are winning the battle of atheism.” Igor Bonchkovski in New Times, n.40, Moscow, 1975
“The national planning of the Society of Jesus in the United States should, following the example of China, become an international planning. Towards the convergence of problems in all areas of the world around a single theme: the construction in different times and forms of a world Communist society.” Strategic document of a group of Dutch Jesuits - in collaboration with other Jesuit revolutionaries—published for internal debate in the official journal of the society of Jesus in the United States, National Jesuit News, April 1972.
“Marxism provides a scientific understanding of the mechanisms of oppression in the world, at local and national levels; It offers the vision of a new world which must be built as a socialist society, the first step to a classless society, where genuine brotherhood can be hopefully possible, and by which deserves sacrifice everything.” Declaration of the theological Association of India in the magazine Vidyajyoti, of the Theological Faculty of the Jesuits in Delhi, April, 1986
“Socialist societies are very ethical, clean, physically and morally. If it weren’t for his materialist doctrine it could be argued that they carried out the ethical teaching of the social doctrine of the Church.” Leonardo Boff on his return from a trip to Moscow, cfr.ABC, 16-VII-87, p.45
Although Leonardo Boff is not Jesuit, he is one of Pope Francis’ most vocal supporters since his election, Boff has been one of the founders of liberation theology, and the most radical at it, a man silenced by the Vatican in 1985, and later by his Franciscan Order, because of attacks to the Church. An exulted Leonardo Boff expressed his feelings: ‘This pope will change the church’, basically according to Boff we shouldn’t need a pope. The church could build a network of religious communities which communicate with each other.
Pope Francis has persecuted traditional Catholics that follow the Tridentine Mass, but it seems to maintain close ties with the leaders of the Marxist liberation theology, a movement condemned by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
. . . and free from getting anywhere near my wallet?
Yes, I lend him out on occasions.:) He will find this amusing.
Honestly, I think there are many Priests that feel sorry for the “diverse” crowd and while they don’t condone certain behaviors or actions, they try to change hearts and minds through positive action but even they can not change a persons free will.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.