The world understands, even if most Catholics have forgotten, that the Catholic Church is the last barrier against the terminal civilizational apostasy for which the powers that be have been laboring for almost three centuries. In the crowd-pleasing words, gestures and publicity stunts Pope Francis provides almost daily, which the media promptly trumpet to the detriment of his predecessors and the Churchs image, the makers of world opinion see their last best chance to take the Church out of commission once and for all. The media recognize that this Pope, whatever his intentions, speaks as if he were determined to complete, per impossible, the ecclesial auto-demolition lamented too late by Paul VI in the midst of the Second Vatican Councils catastrophically foolish opening to the world.
From the traditional Catholic perspective of this newspaper, however, Pope Francis is Man of the Year for a different reason: the unintended consequences of his increasingly alarming pontificate. That is, the Francis effect is finally awakening many Catholics outside traditionalist circles to the awful reality of the post-conciliar revolution in the Church, bringing them face-to-face with a crisis the normalists can no longer conceal behind their usual emasculating interpretations of events. This awakening is typified by the mordant commentary of one rightly appalled Catholic, a convert and novelist, in light of Franciss upcoming encyclical on climate change, already being hailed by the media as the next advance for the Francis revolution. Under the title I Am Concerned she writes:
I regret that our current Holy Father speaks so strongly on topics about which no one expects him to know any more than anyone else. As far as his popular image is concerned, I dont really care what color shoes he wears, what sort of car he goes about in, or where he chooses to set up housekeeping Nothing is more seductive than flattery and applause, especially from a fickle and sensation-hungry press, and nothing is more fatal to our souls than vanity . I suppose encyclicals on other subjects can be written anywhere, provided one wears shoes of a politically correct color.
As these sentiments would suggest, Franciss most significant impact is turning out to be, not what the world applauds, but his inadvertent demonstration that the revolution has gone too far, that it is time to return to the point where the Churchs human element strayed from the path of Tradition to pursue an imaginary renewal, and that nothing is more urgent now than a recovery of everything that was abandoned during a ruinous experiment in novelty Francis seems determined to pursue to the bitter end according to the dream enunciated in his personal manifesto, Evangelii Gaudium:
I dream of a missionary option, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Churchs customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of todays world rather than for her self-preservation.
It is this boundless progressivism, seemingly unhampered by any reverence for what the Church has handed down in her ways of doing things through the centuries, that accounts for the Francis effect which has earned him the worlds endless adulation. In less than two years we have already witnessed these achievements of the Bergoglian papacy:
- an unprecedented disdain for traditional vestments, customs and protocols of the papacy, with the result that the media exalt Franciss humility to the detriment of all his predecessors, including canonized saints who honored these traditions as due the sacrality of the office of Vicar of Christ;
- further ostentatious demonstrations of humility, always before the cameras (dining with Vatican employees in the cafeteria, selfies with members of the crowd, riding a bus to the annual retreat, carrying his own black bag on the chartered jet, etc.), which the media further exploit as an unfavorable reflection on previous Popes;
- perversion of the traditional Holy Thursday mandatum, commemorating the institution of the Priesthood and the Eucharist at the first Mass offered by Our Lord, by washing and kissing the feet of non-Catholics, including Muslim women, thus degrading a sacred tradition by subordinating it to his personal desire to display humility in a novel way;
- the infamous declaration Who am I to judge? respecting gay persons in the Catholic priesthood, creating the impression of an unprecedented new openness to gay people in the Church, which he has since done nothing to counter but on the contrary has continued to cultivate, as seen at the Synod on the Family, which he controlled;
This article is a preview of the next edition of The Remnant. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe today and don't miss another Remnant article ever again!