Posted on 03/02/2017 5:31:21 AM PST by BlessedBeGod
A group of cardinals who supported the election of Pope Francis are worried that his controversial reforms are leading the Catholic church towards a schism and are planning to appeal to him to step down, a leading Vatican watcher has claimed.
“A large part of the cardinals who voted for him is very worried and the curia . . . that organised his election and has accompanied him thus far, without ever disassociating itself from him, is cultivating the idea of a moral suasion to convince him to retire,” Antonio Socci wrote in the Italian newspaper Libero.
The conservative Catholic author and journalist said that the election four years ago of Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been backed by progressive German cardinals and a curia faction impatient with the rule of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
It was the latter faction who now believed that the Pope should resign and who would like to replace him with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, Mr Socci said. He believed that the group numbered around a dozen, “but the importance of the members counts more than their number”.
“Four years after Benedict XVI’s renunciation and Bergoglio’s arrival on the scene, the situation of the Catholic church has become explosive, perhaps really on the edge of a schism, which could be even more disastrous than Luther’s [who is today being rehabilitated by the Bergoglio church],” Mr Socci wrote.
What was significant, he said, was that the doubters were not the conservative cardinals who had been in open opposition to the Pope since early in his reign.
Putting pressure on a pope to resign is a crime punishable under canon law, Mr Socci added, so it was unclear how the moral suasion might be exercised. “The cardinals are worried that the church could be shattered as an institution. There are many indirect ways in which the pressure might be exerted.”
The Pope’s openings to modernity on sexual morality, communion for remarried Catholics and friendly relations with other religions have opened a gulf between progressives and traditionalists.
“A good number of the majority that voted for Bergoglio in 2013 have come to regret their decision,” one expert on the Vatican said, “but I don’t think it’s plausible that members of the hierarchy will pressure the Pope to resign. Those who know him know it would be useless. [He] has a very authoritarian streak. He won’t resign until he has completed his revolutionary reforms, which are causing enormous harm.”
Antonio Pelayo, a Catholic priest who covers the Vatican for Spanish television, said that there were between ten and twenty conservative cardinals openly opposed to the Pope’s reforms, but only two or three who had voted for him and who now regretted it.
• Marie Collins, an Irish abuse victim, resigned from the Pope’s commission for child protection yesterday, citing institutional resistance to reform from within the Vatican curia. She said there were “fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors” and appeared to criticise the Pope for a decision to reduce sanctions against a perpetrator.
The last Pope was too close to the scriptures and the message of the Christ, he had to go.
This pope?
Democrats need a special prosecutor to look into this pretender pope. The Catholic church has not yet adopted liberation theology.
This pope should recuse himself from everything except faith and morals.
Those are precisely what he is destroying.
Is “reform” what they’re calling Apostasy these days?
Let me get this straight:
The liberals forced the resignation of conservative Pope Benedict XVI.
They replaced him with liberal Pope Francis.
This is not working out for them so they want to replace him with another liberal.
How about the CONSERVATIVE Cardinals gather some courage and overwhelm the liberals seeking to undermine the Church?
Note that none of the conservative Cardinals who authored the dubia, requesting clarification of the content of Amoris Latatia, are among those now asking for Pope Francis to resign.
Schism should be avoided, however it looks to be on the horizon.
How can you “reform” God’s word...did he change His mind?
Now they tell us! Gee, Cardinals, why didn’t you just do a better job of due diligence before you voted for him in the last conclave?
I’m praying for conservatives to gather to defeat the liberals.
When JPII wrote the instructions for electing popes, one of his stipulations was that only three votes could take place per day. Francis was elected on the fourth vote of the same day.
63. The election is to begin immediately after the provisions of No. 54 of the present Constitution have been duly carried out.
Should the election begin on the afternoon of the first day, only one ballot is to be held; then, on the following days, if no one was elected on the first ballot, two ballots shall be held in the morning and two in the afternoon. The voting is to begin at a time which shall have been determined earlier, either in the preparatory Congregations or during the election period, but in accordance with the procedures laid down in Nos. 64ff of the present Constitution. (Universi Dominici Gregis #63)
#BringBackBenedict
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