The Catholic Tribalism of Pope Francis

It has been an extraordinary week or so in the Catholic World where we have seen some truly revealing reactions from the main social media voices who support Pope Francis no matter what.

This firestorm was prompted, in the first instance, by Bishop Joseph Strickland's Pastoral Letter issued on 23 August, the full text of which is available to read here.

The next day, Dr. Scott Hahn innocuously thanks Bishop Strickland for his faithfulness. Mike Lewis, the editor of Where Peter Is, took this as a sign of schism and immediately started attacking Hahn in the most vociferous way.

This went on and on and on - as it invariably does with Mike:

It seemed he got considerable push back from the public.

Little wonder really, Scott Hahn is a lovely guy, he is a genius and he is the author of many, many books and interviews all of which do nothing other than lead people to fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church.

The tribalism between Catholics on social media continues apace, this is so sad, but it is demonstrative of the issue at hand: under Pope Francis we are not united by the faith, we are divided by it.

I really believe I would get on well with Mike Lewis if I met him in person, but it is clear that there are tribes which have formed over the period of this papacy with very clear lineages. Those now supporting the Pope were very critical of the previous Pope. You have publications like The Tablet, National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine all talking about how wonderful everything he does and says is, all pro every synod. These are all outlets with a proven history of dissent. Faithful groups and publications have been ostracised by Pope Francis and problematic groups have been endorsed. Any reasonable person might ask why that is?

Similarly, one would think any reasonable person committed to the Catholic faith and concerned with the integrity of its practice and teaching (as all parents should be) would wonder about Pope Francis' appointments. There is no justification for Pope Francis horrific choices for key Vatican positions (Baldesseri, Cupich, Maradiaga, Ricca, Paglia, Coccopalmerio, Farrell, Marx, Rosica, Tobin, Zanchetta etc etc etc). All men who have expressed positions in opposition to the faith. All men who are compromised. All men who clearly have an agenda of change away from the deposit of the faith.

If you care about the faith - why would you not be bothered about this?

If you have any experience with authority or leadership you know that a faithful son of the Church would not be filling the Vatican with men like this because he likes dialogue or some such nonsense!

If you check Mike's Twitter timeline, or Tony Annett's, or Chris Lamb, or Austen Ivereigh, or DW Lafferty, they're all just re-tweeting each other. Reinforcing the same narratives. You have to wonder how they never realise the likeness...Or perhaps they do, perhaps that's the point and what we are actually seeing here is the reversal of the previous papacies: Perhaps they really do see this as the realisation of a long awaited dream where we will have women priests and divorce and contraception and all that great secular stuff that's working out so well for the rest of society? How can these people think criticising and even spreading rumours about people like Bishop Strickland and Scott Hahn is a good look?

That doesn't mean Mike Lewis et al don't care about the faith, but I think they have certainly bought into an ideology over discipleship, as many have. And it is increasingly difficult to see how that ideology is not about the dismantling of the deposit of faith and its replacement with something else. Something more secular.

But what really drives them nuts about Bishop Barron, Bishop Strickland, Ralph Martin and Scott Hahn is that these are not "trads". They can't scream at them about being schismatic because they won't obey Traditiones custodes. These are men who represent normal, middle of the road Catholics. And they are all starting to speak out about the obvious problems in Rome.

One of these people who support Pope Francis threw this Austen Ivereigh tweet at me:

I was challenged to prove how Austen is wrong.

Which is a reasonable request. I have glanced at the Instrumentum Laboris, but not read it in detail. I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a look. Obviously I can't go through all the synthesis documents, but I thought it was a reasonable challenge to ask - is Bishop Strickland "manufacturing outrage" or is he exercising reasonable care for his flock? 

Let's have a look at the seven main claims of Bishop Strickland's letter and see how they relate to the Franciscan Pontificate and the synodal preparation:

1. Christ established One Church—the Catholic Church—and, therefore, only the Catholic Church provides the fullness of Christ’s truth and the authentic path to His salvation for all of us. 

Pope Francis has blurred the distinction between Christian denominations with his "ecumenism of blood" rhetoric. He went on to add 21 Coptic Martyrs to the Roman Martyrology turning his rhetoric into action. 

Gregory Venables, Anglican bishop of Argentina and former primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America, said that Cardinal Bergoglio had told him very clearly that the personal ordinariates established within the Catholic Church for groups of former Anglicans was "quite unnecessary" and that the Catholic Church needed Anglicans as Anglicans (source).

In 2022 Pope Francis endorsed an interreligious declaration which crossed a theological line that no other Church document in the past had crossed and that makes this document singular in nature. That is the Pope's endorsement of a document containing a passage which states, “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” Eric Sammons explains some of the problems in this examination.

He attended an Indigenous ‘healing dance’ to ‘Mother Earth’ during his Canada trip.

Do I need to even mention Pachamamma?

All these actions are typical of the kind of accusations of syncretism and inculturation which have long been hallmarks of the Jesuit order the Pope belongs to, so we really should not be surprised.

Syncretism is the effort to unite different doctrines and practices, the term mainly refers to misguided claims that religious unity can be achieved by ignoring the differences between faiths on the assumption that all creeds are essentially one and the same. (Etym. Greek synkrētizo, to unite disunited elements into a harmonious whole; from synkrētizmos, federation of Cretan cities.). Doesn't that sound quite like a lot of the things Pope Francis is saying about other religions?

The question for us then is, does the Catholic Church believe that one “religion” is as good as another? OR, can the faith that comes to us from the Apostles accept the belief that the basic dogmatic beliefs of all the religions in the world are essentially the same? Pope Francis certainly seems to believe that they are if we are to judge him based on his words and his actions. So Bishop Strickland is right to be concerned about this dimension creeping in to the papacy. But is it something that the Synod on Synodality is going to teach?

The Instrumentum Laboris takes the ambiguity and syncretic thread of the Franciscan papacy and weaves it through the document in a typically abstruse manner. In n. 25 of the working document the Synodal Church is, apparently, all about "encounter" and "dialogue" - "an authentically synodal Church cannot but involve all those who share the one Baptism." - ": no one is asked to leave their own context, but rather to understand it and enter into it more deeply"

"All the Final Documents of the Continental Assemblies highlight the close relationship between synodality and ecumenism, and some devote entire chapters to it. Indeed, both synodality and ecumenism are rooted in the baptismal dignity of the entire People of God. Together they invite renewed commitment to the vision of a missionary synodal Church. They are processes of listening and dialogue and invite us to grow in a communion that is not uniformity but unity in legitimate diversity." (B1.4 -f)

Nowhere in a document which claims to be born of the "Magisterium of the Second Vatican Council" (whatever that is) are the unique claims of the Catholic Church even hinted at. Lumen Gentium n. 8 states:

"This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, (12*) which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd,(74) and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority,(75) which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth".(76) This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,(13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity."

This is one of the most controversial passages of Vatican II - and yet compared to the language of the Instrumentum Laboris it appears exceedingly clear and clearly more Catholic. Indeed it is exceedingly difficult to find an authentically Catholic thread running through the Instrumentum Laboris which hints at things more than anything else and fails to be clear about any topic.

It does clearly attempt to blur the lines with regard to the Catholic Church's unique claim to authenticity as the guardian of the deposit of faith from which all other ecclesial communities might share elements of truth with and which, if they do share elements, they get these elements from the Catholic Church!

Conclusion: Bishop Strickland is correct. The Instrumentum Laboris would suggest that the agenda is to move away from the unique claim of the Catholic Church as the rock founded on St Peter.

2. The Eucharist and all the sacraments are divinely instituted, not developed by man. The Eucharist is truly Christ’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and to receive Him in Communion unworthily (i.e. in a state of grave, unrepentant sin) is a devastating sacrilege for the individual and for the Church. (1 Cor 11:27-29)

At first glance, I would say this concern is born of the many times we have seen Pope Francis promote a Protestant style "open table" Communion. The most obvious case is in Amoris Laetitia. The reputed ghost writer of this document, Archbishop Victor Fernández, has recently been made head of the DDF by Pope Francis and subsequently Fernández argued that Francis was “helping us to be free from those patterns” of moral laws, which forbade people in a state of mortal sin from receiving Holy Communion.

I could post lots of individual examples, but if you've been following the papacy at all you will know that the basic direction of travel is open table communion. He has directly intervened in numerous cases and right from the start of his papacy he was on the phone undermining bishops and priests in their own dioceses. The most blatant and obvious interventions were with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden where Pope Francis directly undermined US bishops and created Eucharistic incoherence. The Pope has been consistent in his inconsistency with Catholic doctrine, saying for years and repeatedly that he has never denied Holy Communion to anyone, even giving it to a Jewish woman on one occasion.

There can be little doubt that the Pope does not have a very high Eucharistic theology.

So what is in the Instrumentum Laboris? What can we expect from the Synod on Synodality about this?

In n. 20 the document states Holy Communion is somehow linked to ecumenism:

 

"Communion and mission are nourished in the common participation in the Eucharist that makes the Church a body “joined and knitted together” (Eph 4:16) in Christ, able to walk together towards the Kingdom."

The Eucharist is also mentioned in n. 30. This is the passage in context:

"29. Trying to walk together also brings us into contact with the healthy restlessness of incompleteness, with the awareness that there are still many things whose weight we are not able to carry or bear (cf. Jn 16:12). This is not a problem to be solved, but rather a gift to be cultivated. We are faced with the inexhaustible and holy mystery of God and must remain open to its surprises as we walk through history towards the Kingdom. This also applies to the questions that the synodal process has brought to light. As a first step they require listening and attention, without rushing to offer immediate solutions. 30. Carrying the weight of these questions should not be the personal burden of those who occupy certain roles, with the risk of being crushed by them, but a task for the entire community, whose relational and sacramental life is often the most effective immediate response. This is why a synodal Church unceasingly nourishes itself at the source of the mystery it celebrates in the liturgy, “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” and “the font from which all her power flows” (SC 10), particularly in the Eucharist."

Just what does this mean? Walking together leads us to "awareness" that there are things we can't bear - this is a gift not a problem - so we must be open to surprises - as we must to the questions the synodal process has brought to light which might crush some people so we go to Holy Communion. WHAT???!!

There's a similarly confusing mention in n. 34.

In n. 47 we get:

"it is through shared liturgical action, and in particular the eucharistic celebration, that the Church experiences radical unity, expressed in the same prayer but in a diversity of languages and rites: a fundamental point in a synodal key. From this point of view, the multiplicity of rites in the one Catholic Church is an authentic blessing, to be protected and promoted, as was also experienced during the liturgies of the Continental Assemblies."

So a very muted Eucharistic theology which focuses on the Communion aspect. Is it just me or does all this sound extremely Protestant?

Conclusion: Simply working from the Instrumentum Laboris Bishop Strickland is right to be concerned at the synodal treatment of the Eucharist which certainly has limited focus on purely the Communion aspect and fails to mention the moral necessity of the Sacrament, that we need to prepare for such a great gift in order to be properly disposed to receive the grace which accompanies proper reception. On page 40 of the Instrumentum Laboris it asks the synod to reflect on non - ordained ministry of the Sacrament. It is hard to see how this is relevant, fosters any kind of renewal, or is even interesting!

3. The Sacrament of Matrimony is instituted by God. Through Natural Law, God has established marriage as between one man and one woman faithful to each other for life and open to children. Humanity has no right or true ability to redefine marriage.

A big part of any concern about this has got to come from two constantly affirmed positions of the Pope. One is his constant out reach to homosexuals, which strategically would seem to be all about welcoming people as they are. He has stated that he thinks partnerships for same sex couples are legitimate. The second is Amoris Laetitia as an attack on the indissolubility of Marriage.

Perhaps the Pope doesn't understand the indissoluble link between the unitive and procreative ends of marriage affirmed in Humanae vitae? At the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes n. 47 held that “The well-being of the individual person and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family." - that's quite an important emphasis. The Instrumentum Laboris only mentions Marriage three times, twice in the context of polygamous marriages (not an actual thing in Catholic teaching) and a third time in the context of ecumenism and "inter-Church marriages".

In B1.2 (p.29) the Instrumentum Laboris states:

"the final documents of the Continental Assemblies often mention those who do not feel accepted in the Church, such as the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ Catholics;"

I suppose one could add the list from 1 Cor 6:9-11 to this list?! People in polygamous marriage should not feel accepted because, as Bishop Strickland points out, we do not accept polygamous marriages as marriages, neither to we accept same sex marriages as marriages - and for good reason, they do not meet the basic criteria of what constitutes marriage! There is a discussion to be had about how we engage with people in these positions. It could be said we need to explain how they are welcome before they become aware of the problems...A kind of chicken and egg thing. Jesus called to them and then He called them to repent. He wasn't backwards in coming forwards. If we pretend we are OK with sin to later cause scandal or find ourselves in a position where we still have to have that difficult conversation or even worse, back track to some extent on our initial pretence at hospitality, surely we end up in a worse place than if we had just been clear from the beginning!

Conslusion: Bishop Strickland appears to have discerned that in society in general Marriage is in crisis: Expounding and promoting the Catholic doctrine of Marriage should be the priority for the Church in our time because the family IS the domestic Church (LG 11), the school of deeper humanity (GS 52). Is this document really supposed to be the way to implement Vatican II properly, because the authors don't appear at all familiar with what Vatican II teaches!

4. Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male or female, and all people should be helped to discover their true identities as children of God, and not supported in a disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological and God-given identity.

This concern is clearly being raised by Bishop Strickland as a result of Pope Francis' constant ambiguous comments regarding transgenderism. The use of the LGBTQI+ terminology by the Church is, itself, an innovation under Pope Francis. Up to this point the Church has not used such determinate language because it is intrinsically indicative of a false anthropology which seeks to transplant the true nature of human beings with their sexual identity. 

Earlier this week I posted about Pope Francis' dangerous ambiguity in regard to transgender issues. His position is in contravention with the teaching document issued by the Vatican in 2019 Male and Female He Created Them which teaches:

"...dualistic anthropology, separating body (reduced to the status of inert matter) from human will, which itself becomes an absolute that can manipulate the body as it pleases. [...]physicalism and voluntarism gives rise to relativism, in which everything that exists is of equal value and at the same time undifferentiated, without any real order or purpose. In all such theories,[...] one’s gender ends up being viewed as more important than being of male or female sex. The effect of this move is chiefly to create a cultural and ideological revolution driven by relativism, and secondarily a juridical revolution, since such beliefs claim specific rights for the individual and across society" (no. 20)

Pope Francis is consistent in his welcome of all people including those suffering from transgender issues, and this is excellent, we must be understanding and welcoming of course, but we must also be consistent and clear, especially on an issue like this which is causing a great deal of distress for a lot of people at present. To fail to clearly condemn this false anthropology is to fail the children the Church has a duty of care for. It is a key moment in history and the Pope is failing in this regard terribly with schools citing him as the justification for embracing LGBTQI+ ideology as we have repeatedly seen.

The Instrumentum Laboris does use the LGBTQ+ acronym twice - both times in the context of inclusion and nowhere in the context of explaining or affirming Catholic anthropology or moral teaching or the necessity or importance of doing so. Indeed, the Cardinal in charge, Hollerich, who is on recorded stating Church teaching on homosexuality is false and needs to change expressly said "We do not speak about the Church's teaching"

Synod 2023. "We do not speak about the Church's teaching, that is not our task and not our mission" so whose task and mission is it to speak about the Church's teaching now? ??? pic.twitter.com/hWCRqcMBaf

— Robert Nugent (Decrevi Channel) (@DecreviD2BC) June 20, 2023

If we have a message worth speaking about why on earth would we put someone who thinks that message is wrong in charge or the meeting designed to promulgate that message? Someone who has said he won't speak about what that message is?

Conclusion: Bishop Strickland rightly asserts that this is a real problem that is prevalent in our societies and is being, at best ignored by the synod and at worst, endorsed.

5. Sexual activity outside marriage is always gravely sinful and cannot be condoned, blessed, or deemed permissible by any authority inside the Church.

It is interesting that this is obviously closely linked with the Marriage point and also the next point, point 6:

6. The belief that all men and women will be saved regardless of how they live their lives (a concept commonly referred to as universalism) is false and is dangerous, as it contradicts what Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospel. Jesus says we must “deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.” (Matt 16:24) He has given us the way, through His grace, to victory over sin and death through repentance and sacramental confession. It is essential that we embrace the joy and hope, as well as the freedom, that come from repentance and humbly confessing our sins. Through repentance and sacramental confession, every battle with temptation and sin can be a small victory that leads us to embrace the great victory that Christ has won for us.

Obviously point 5 is strongly linked to the Pope's welcoming of same sex attracted people and especially couples. Under Pope Francis we have seen both the Belgian and German bishops (both areas where Church attendance is in free fall incidentally) break ranks with the Church and endorse blessings for same sex couples.

The fact that the synod is pushing in this direction is without doubt, even with the small mention it makes of such situations - it does mention them in the context of "welcoming". 

The facts are that the Church has always welcomed sinners - welcomed them and called them to repentance. So what has changed? What is the Pope trying to do here? It seems clear that what he is trying to do is drop the repentance bit and welcome people - "todos, todos, todos" - just as they are. And this is where Bishop Strickland's point 6 comes in - and it all ties in beautifully, because this, in case you weren't aware, is the big strategy behind Amoris Laetitia chapter 8 which attempted to rehabilitate and slip in problematic arguments and dubious moral theology addressed concretely in Veritatis Splendor and which would give the German bishops all they want. 

I started going into depth about this but I have written so much about it over the years if you want details, just type Amoris Laetitia into the search bar at the top of this blog and you can read all about it! Or have a look at this by the priest who taught me Moral Theology at Maryvale.

The Universalist element evident in Amoris Laetitia is born of the way it treats conscience. It suggests it is only a private matter between the individual and God, while references to invincible ignorance and to other factors reducing responsibility risk implying that people rarely sin or are rarely culpable. Grave misinterpretations of conciliar doctrine on conscience, corrected in Veritatis splendor, are basically ignored in Amoris Laetitia. Conciliar and papal teaching that no one can act in good conscience who disregards magisterial teaching or who treats it as mere opinion (Dignitatis humanae, 14; John Paul II, Allocution, Nov., 1988) is not mentioned. Distinguishing right from wrong by dialogue and example in families and beyond does not occur automatically; it lacks the clarity, the coherence and the justification afforded by education also on the Decalogue and on the Church’s moral teaching, necessary for youngsters to be convinced and to defend objective moral truth before their peers. 

In short it risks situation ethics, laxism, moral relativism and widespread contradictory pastoral practice.

All the elements we thought we were rescued from over the last forty or so years after the papacy of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

In the Instrumentum Laboris we see Salvation is offered to all the nations "in a great diversity of contexts: no one is asked to leave their own context, but rather to understand it and enter into it more deeply." n. 25. This sounds extremely universalist to me! Although it does go on in n. 26 to say "it presses to be implemented ever more fully, expressing a radical call to conversion, change, prayer and action that is for all. In this sense, a synodal Church is open, welcoming and embraces all." which seems vaguely contradictory. Of course I am not saying the Instrumentum Laboris endorses the heresy of Universalism long condemned by the Church, but I'm not saying the Instrumentum Laboris says anything really definitive. It is ambiguous and amorphous, difficult to understand and harder to pin down. 

Conclusion: Bishop Strickland is correct to teach his flock that there is a movement to abstract moral theology in the synod on synodality and he is correct to call out Universalism and to encourage repentance and confession of sin. In all these things, each of these points, he is stating what the Church has always taught, the Catholic truth, and he is doing it in a much clearer way than Pope Francis or the Synod are!

Finally...

7. In order to follow Jesus Christ, we must willingly choose to take up our cross instead of attempting to avoid the cross and suffering that Our Lord offers to each of us individually in our daily lives. The mystery of redemptive suffering—i.e. suffering that Our Lord allows us to experience and accept in this world and then offer back to Him in union with His suffering—humbles us, purifies us, and draws us deeper into the joy of a life lived in Christ. That is not to say that we must enjoy or seek out suffering, but if we are united to Christ, as we experience our daily sufferings we can find the hope and joy that exist amidst the suffering and persevere to the end in all our suffering. (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-8)

To finish Bishop Strickland gives us some really good, unremarkable but solid Catholic advice about the reality of suffering we all face. To my mind, this speaks against the Gaianistic tendencies of the climate cult Pope Francis is so committed to. The Pope is indeed so committed he tells us he is going to publish a part two to his rambling, self-referential encyclical letter from 2015, Laudato Si. I worry that the inference of this trajectory, though it maybe an attempt to develop on themes from Pope Benedict XVI's work perhaps best exemplified by his message on the World Day of Peace in 2010. But Laudato Si goes much further and though it certainly contains many noble and fitting exhortations which we all probably need to hear, the modern encyclical tradition is a teaching tradition, not a homiletic one, and Laudato Si provides too little teaching. But the real problem here is the idea that we are in control and can make a heaven here on earth. We do have the duty of stewardship, but our concern should be with getting to heaven and this whole direction of travel is not what the Pope should be really directing us towards.

Conclusion: Bishop Strickland is right to remind us that regardless of the suffering we encounter in our lives, the answers are to be found in Jesus Christ and uniting our own sufferings with His.

It seems we have reached a point where even being a faithful Catholic, just as Catholics have always been, is a point that needs correcting as far as those who follow Francis are concerned. I mean, when you're attacking Scott Hahn, you really need to have word with yourself! It's the Catholic equivalent of someone attacking Santa Claus!

It is a simple matter to illustrate how Bishop Stricklands warning is entirely justified based on factual evidence from the synod preparation and the words and actions of Pope Francis himself. It is simple cause and effect which leads anyone who loves and cares about the faith and is paying attention to what is going on in the Church to be extremely worried. Indeed there are lots of stories of people leaving the Church, apostatising or becoming Orthodox because of what the Pope is doing.

At the very least, rather than being the point of unity for the Church he is supposed to be, we see increasing division and tribalism. And as I said on the last episode of Catholic Unscripted, I don't see it coming to anything anyway. It never has before and the approaches and discussion in the Instrumentum Laboris are the same tired old ideas we have been hearing for years and years now.

The synod presents a further problem as the retired Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin warns today in the Irish Catholic: synodal consultations will no doubt lead to “frustrated expectations” when people realise that the process will not lead to a radical change in Church teaching on hot-button issues. It never has and it will not now. It will just do loads of damage in the process - which is what we have seen and what we continue to see. Come Holy Spirit!