Posted on 05/28/2015 7:40:25 PM PDT by annalex
May 27, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The prominent German monthly journal, Cicero, a secular-intellectual publication, has entitled its May issue “The Struggle for Rome” (“Der Kampf um Rom”) and has dedicated it to the papacy of Pope Francis. In it, Guiseppe Rusconi, the well-respected Swiss Rome-Correspondent and journalist for Inside the Vatican, reports on the internal criticisms of Pope Francis as they were privately and candidly disclosed to him from within the Roman Curia itself.
Rusconi's revelations caused an immediate stir in Rome, since he simultaneously posted the Italian version of his article on his own website, rossoporpora.org, where he summed up and specifically quoted forthright comments made by high-ranking clergymen from the Roman Curia who also openly revealed to him the atmosphere within the Vatican. They spoke with the explicit request that they should remain anonymous.
Rusconi starts his article with the stunning quote from one of his sources: “Francis has remained with his heart and mind the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. That would also be fine, if he were not, for two years now, the Bishop of Rome and therewith Pope of the Universal Church.”
As Rusconi says, many Curial members are still indignant about Pope Francis' last Christmas address in 2014 to the Roman Curia:
The large stomach of the Vatican still has not yet digested the last address of Pope Francis to the Curia on December 22 of last year. […] The address still burns under the skin of many Curials. 'If someone would have had the courage to get off his chair and to leave the Sala Clementina while the Pope was presenting his list [of reproaches and accusations], then, I think, all – or nearly all – would have left: right-wing or left-wing, young or old,' comments which came from my first interlocutor with the bitterness of a man who feels wounded. And he earnestly requested once more: 'That my name will not be made public! Can I rely on that?'
Rusconi describes the atmosphere within the Curia, as follows: “The Curia finds itself in an uncomfortable, even insecure situation.” He describes the intensification of conflicts in Rome:
Today, with the distance of two years, some of those wearers of the purple color who were then joining in jubilation might regret to have given their own vote to the then-76-year-old Archbishop. A struggle for Rome has started, and it is not at all clear who stands where – also because Francis himself speaks in a contradictory way. But there is already taking place a wrestling [a grappling]. And from October 4 on when between 200 and 300 bishops will meet in Rome for the [2015] Synod in order to speak about family questions, it could come to even harder fights.
Pope Francis' expression of “Who am I to judge?” also finds much criticism:
With this renunciation to judge, this 'sentence which has been abused by many media, Pope Francis did damage to the Church,' stressed another interlocutor from the Vatican with whom I met for lunch in Trastevere. 'He has, without intending it, favored the advance of the homosexual lobby which he claims to fight.'
Concerning the question of the family, many members of the Curia do not understand Pope Francis' intentions. As one source says to Rusconi: “One simply does not understand what Pope Francis' aims are. After a very firm principled declaration, he follows up with words and gestures that cause insecurity and confusion among orthodox Catholics.” In the eyes of this man, Pope Francis is tempted “to want to win the hearts of those who are, according to the current teaching, living in an irregular situation [i.e., remarried couples].”
Rusconi discusses some of those Cardinals who push for a liberalizing agenda with respect to the Church's moral teaching, namely, Reinhard Cardinal Marx and Walter Cardinal Kasper, both of whom are now meeting with resistance and adverse criticism. For example, he says about Cardinal Marx himself:
The President of the German Bishops' Conference [Cardinal Marx] does not have an easy status and standing in Rome these days, since he has claimed for the German Church the right to go its own pastoral ways with respect to the problem of the remarried divorcees, and independently of any majority of the Synod. 'We are not a subsidiary of Rome,' Marx has declared. The Swiss Curial Cardinal, Kurt Koch, promptly felt reminded of the 'German Christians' who bowed down to the Nazis during the Third Reich. In the same way, the German Curial Cardinal, Paul Josef Cordes, also disapproved of the ideas of Marx. He declared in the newspaper Die Tagespost: 'As a social ethicist, Cardinal Marx might have some knowledge about the [commercial-financial] dependencies of subsidiaries toward their mother company. But, in the context of the Church, such comments should rather be left to the village pub.'
One of Rusconi's interlocutors criticizes Pope Francis for trying to fight material poverty while omitting to speak about the danger of spiritual poverty, and even the loss of Faith. He says:
But the Church is universal, and the greatest poverty is the spiritual poverty, as one sees it especially in the Occident, where the number of Catholics is continually dwindling. Unfortunately, the Pope has very little interest in Europe.
The same source, as presented by Rusconi, comments on the Synod of the Family:
I think, he [Pope Francis] wants to lead the forthcoming Synod on the Family in October onto a certain path so that the Synod Fathers feel urged to choose [putatively] merciful solutions – which would be, in my eyes, not be a true mercy – especially with regard to the question whether remarried people shall be admitted to Holy Communion.
The journalist Rusconi concludes his very important synopsis of some of the internal criticisms from within the Curia with these words: “The dispute in the fall, however, could turn out just the same: sour and sharp.”
Not a pretty picture; and not an edifying example or ethos, is it?
” Nothing will work until the RCC scraps once and for all the celibacy rule for priests. The rule is the main reason the clergy is overrun with homosexuals and all the spiritual disease they bring to the Church.” -——
The condition of celibacy for the Catholic priesthood since the time of the Apostles was encouraged by Jesus, and in obedience to Christ Jesus the condition has enjoyed no debilitating effect on the Roman Church, at least that has been even sparsely documented.
In my opinion this reasoning is a modern canard used for venting the misplaced rage about the real cause(s) of the overall sad condition of the Catholic Church in the West.
This canard is also useful to enemies of the Church who openly wish to mess with the signs and identity of the Catholic Church— to make Holy Mother Church appear increasingly more Protestant. After all, one-size-fits-all is so very ecumenical looking, and oozes “unity”.
One might say the Church becomes more pedestrian, ordinary, so we can kill dead that idea of being evermore a
“peculiar people” as scripture identifies the people of God.
No, celibacy is not the problem. Looking and becoming more like the world is the problem, against which Jesus admonished His people.
That is not what he said. He said, "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"
Geeze, I just saw your post here. How heartbreaking and savage. I despise what happened to your family and friend.
Satan stirred and yours were struck. My God, I’m so sorry for you and yours.
I have to ask.... what is your answer if a school teacher does the same, do we drop the institution of public schools?
(Which I’m all FOR, for other obvious reasons, btw.)
Millions of Eastern Rite Catholics, not to mention of Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters, would no doubt take exception to your conflating married clergy and being "Protestant.
We are getting a new priest in our diocese from our parish. There is NO WAY he is not heterosexual, as he was married and the father of two, grandfather of two. He is older and ready for celibacy and the priesthood. We are all excited about his journey.
Yes, we drop institution of public schools. That seems obvious. I'm not sure if you actually meant that literally, because the answer is so obviously "yes." Please let me know if I misunderstood.
Anyway, you're avoiding the question - which is whether the RCC as an institution has proven itself capable of internal reform. The answer is clearly no.
I am reminded of Stalin's famous dictum - "the cadres determine everything." Stalin - being head of the CPSU's HR department as Party Secretary - understood that a leader can give all the orders he wants, but if the bureaucracy is not with him then all orders can be ignored, subverted and so on.
This is why Salvation's reference to Vatican emissaries insisting on screening out homosexual seminarians is so laughably tragic. See, the RCC bureaucrats in charge of the screening are themselves homosexuals, or homosexual sympathizers, so the orders, like all similar orders in the past, will be roundly ignored, subverted, and otherwise held up to mockery.
Since we're talking about Stalin, how did he deal with the problem of a Trotskyite bureaucracy subverting his plans for personal aggrandizement? Jesus said we must be as clever as serpents, so let's at least take a look at his example.
I'll answer my own question. Stalin replaced the Trotsyite bureaucracy with his own. He did it by killing all the Old Bolsheviks and personally appointing his own henchmen. (I would add that this is the problem the GOP has when it gets into power - the bureaucracy is Democrat and it subverts conservative plans and nothing can work until the Democrat bureaucracy is liquidated, but I digress).
The RCC, if it hopes to stem the losses (again, it just lost Catholic Ireland), but utterly replace the current diseased, lavender clergy with psychologically healthy men. That means married men. Only married men may be ordained. Ordain all sane married deacons immediately. Set the new, married "breeder" faction against the "lavender" faction and wage relentless war against the lavenders until they are extirpated utterly.
It's the only way that stands a chance of success. Anything short of that will be subverted by the entrenched lavender RCC bureaucrats.
You have a point. .)
That surely dissolves all the rest of what I said.
Oh, I forgot. It actually doesn’t. %.)
Hear! Hear!!!
I didn’t follow that. What did you mean?
The institutional Catholic Church has failed to repent of increasingly seeking favor with the world, its errors, and the contentment of heretics.
Here is just one example: To entertain much of a discussion on a more “pastoral approach” to what is already a known abomination, that of sodomy, is a discussion that shouldn’t last very long.
What I meant was that you sure blew past all the rest of what I said, without comment, except for adding your Eastern Orthodox remark. I just thought that had very little to do with my defense of celibacy.
It’s okay though.
Well, I do advocate Inquisition rather than merely a certain personnel policy. This is also why God gave us the pederast priests problem: to remove the attraction that priesthood might have for gays. Give it time.
One cannot repent of his faith, and I have faith that God gave me.
Oh, yeah. It just voices the disagreements in concrete terms, and as coming from the Curia itself. It was easy to dismiss the off-the cliff SSPX critics because we’ve seen them criticize any pope at all.
I also found the diagnosis of internalized Buenos Aires interesting, and it rings true to me.
I don't "seem" to think, I just think, and I believe I express myself clearly. No?
Of course celibacy in itself is a witness, and the only way to drive the lavender mafia out is to insist on it.
Or do you seem to think that giving horny men a sexual outlet will make them a better witness for Christ?
Here's interesting read:
This should be a wake-up call for all Christians in Britain. It is time for Protestants who have complacently dismissed church abuse as a “Catholic problem” to face the reality that abuse is endemic across denominations. As a Christian, and as someone who writes and teaches about religion and sexuality, I have heard far more stories of sexual abuse than I can count – along with stories of cover-ups, sexist responses, victim-blaming and repeated failures to take allegations seriously.In terms of abuse in British churches, the 1,885 cases announced by the Methodists are undoubtedly the tip of the iceberg.
Only a few years after the Catholic child abuse scandals, we are on the brink of a new scandal. This time it will be about abuse across churches, probably mostly of adults. It can no longer be blamed simply on Catholic doctrine or clerical celibacy.
Protestants can no longer dismiss abuse as a ‘Catholic problem’
I am not sure I agree. I know gay people that really struggle with their sexuality and wish to reach a state of chastity; some, at some point, have done so, and remained Catholic. There is a vast field between those who go to gay pride parades and those who take their problem very, very seriously. The desire to counsel the homosexual is not wrong; approaches often are.
We have lost our sense of scandalous CaTholic behavior,
I’m not sure I agree, either.
We do not know, actually, what this ridiculous term “a more pastoral approach” even means today, in terms of the impact on priests. The ruminating and naval gazing going, in Rome, on this pastoral approach business is coming from a tiny minority and it appears unnecessary on its face, since the duty of a priest IS and always has been definitively pastoral.
Priests are generally wonderful pastoral counselors on matters of faith and morals, and may enjoy the gift of counsel. Beyond his priestly duty to teach and to admonish, and to counsel on certain matters and up to a point, the priests generally can recommend a psychiatrist, or psychologist, or risk being sued for dabbling beyond his expertise with occasionally unstable individuals.
I would suggest when the priest’s “approach” is deemed “wrong”, it is likely because of just that— in above his head. It is rare indeed that a priest casts even a criticism, never mind an actual judgment on such a person.
Priests should not be shaped, manipulated, additionally obligated or expected to now be entirely charged to deal with a pathology, a mental/behavioral disorder.
IMHO, there is much that is urgent for Rome to contend with. This subject is not it. IMHO. Thx, Rita.
I think that much attention to counseling gays is indeed a response not to a pressing need on the part of the gays, but the futile desire to explain things to the hostile media.
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