Posted on 10/30/2023 11:52:21 AM PDT by ebb tide
Pope Francis has accused young priests who wear traditional priestly garments of “clericalism”.
Addressing hundreds of synodal participants in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican, the Pontiff stated that it was a “scandal” to “go to ecclesiastical tailors in Rome [and] see… young priests trying on cassocks and hats or albs and surplices with lace.”
“Clericalism is a whip, it is a scourge, it is a form of worldliness that soils and damages the face of the Lord’s bride; and enslaves God’s faithful holy people,” he added.
The Holy Father also denounced “macho and dictatorial attitudes” on the part of clerics, while praising faithful laypeople who “patiently and humbly” endure mistreatment and the bad governance of the Church.
Pope Francis’s remarks came as the Vatican drew renewed criticism (including a formal complaint from the Pope’s own anti-abuse panel) for the handling of the case Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik – a friend of the Holy Father and an influential church artist – who earlier this year was accused of historic sexual abuse on a wide scale.
He was later expelled from the Society of Jesus, but on September 9 the Pope met with a close aide of Fr Rupnik’s in the Vatican. Four days later the Vatican’s doctrinal office released a report announcing that there were “doubts” about his expulsion, owing to the identification of “irregularities in the procedures”.
In addition to accusations of “clericalism”, Pope Francis has in the past accused laypeople and clerical folk who favour traditional liturgy (many of whom he has acknowledged to be young) of “rigidity”, and has suggested that their disposition “hides something: insecurity or even something else.”
In 2021 Pope Francis severely restricted the traditional Latin liturgy with the motu proprio Traditiones Custodes, in what was widely seen as a reversal of the policy of his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who had widely opened up the Tridentine rites.
Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s private secretary, later said that Pope Francis’s decision to revoke the provisions made in Summorum Pontificum in 2007 “broke [Pope Benedict’s] heart”, coming eighteen months before he died.
Meanwhile, it emerged on October 25 that Fr Rupnik had returned to priestly ministry in his native Slovenia after consultations and encouragement from the local papal nuncio. Nevertheless he remains remains accused of sexually abusing over 25 women – most of whom are religious sisters.
Recent reports suggested that he might be rehabilitated and evade trial – drawing sharp condemnation from victims of abuse – but on October 27 it was announced that Pope Francis had lifted the statute of limitations on the case, potentially paving the way for a trial in due course.
Ping
Huh ... I’m scandalized by ‘bishops’ who cover for sodomites, or are themselves sodomites.
I’m scandalized by a ‘pope’ who preaches heresy.
Traditional vestments? They’re a darn sight better than the hideous chasubles I used to see non-traditional priests wearing.
His problem is priests who are actually Catholic.
Pope Francis sounds like the French Reign of Terror.
Someone sounds like a dictator, for sure.
And yes, I’m aware that the papacy isn’t a democracy, but Pope Francis’s notion that it’s an autocracy is a damned lie, too. The pope is a servant to the magisterium, not its author.
Well, it’s the Argentinian Reign of Terror, but that’s a nit ...
+Marcel Lefebvre will be Canonized one day.
Bergoglio has made fun of and belittled Traditional priests since he was installed as pope. He claims by wearing black cassocks they are trying to hide from the world, probably guilty of sexual abuses. Yes, the current pope said this about fellow Catholic priests. It’s call projection. He’s probably guilty of the sins he claims they are guilty of.
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