Pope Francis Intensifies War With US Bishops
As if it could get any more shocking - this morning the fight between the Vatican & the US was ramped up to defcon 9 when the Papal Nuncio made the weird announcement that The Pope wants his magisterium of Evangelium Gaudium, Amoris Laetitia, Laudato si implemented. The trouble is, because of all his double-speak, no one has got any clue what that means!
Also, what happened to synodality???? It's fine for ze Germanz when they want gay priests and married women eucharist ministers - or whatever, but the bishops of the USA MUST TOW THE LINE ACCORDING TO THEIt's true that the vast majority of US bishops have completely ignored Chapter 8 and the Buenos Aires guidelines in their 'implementation' of Amoris laetitia. The same goes for the vast majority of bishops worldwide; maybe some signs that the Pope isn't happy with this situation. https://t.co/0PF7YErDIf— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) November 11, 2019
This struck me as the editorial in the Catholic Herald last weekend was entitled "Heal the Rift" and noted that the deepest rift in the Church today is between the Papacy of Francis and the United States. As evidence for this, the Herald cites the Viganò affair & notes that even after he had published his testimony accusing the pope of failing to root out corruption, the Vatican was dismayed that so few US bishops sprang to the pope's defence, some even publicly siding with the archbishop.This will go unremarked, but it again shows how little decentralisation is actually considered "healthy", once we transition from the theoretical to the practical.— Scott Smith (@hf_222222) November 11, 2019
(Especially since regional pastoral variation was understood to be encouraged in AL itself). https://t.co/v44nIperrk
A few months later came the bizarre & unfathomable spectacle of the Vatican ordering the US bishops not to vote on measures intended to tackle the abuse crisis. Of course, it can be traced back much further than that, take for example close papal confident Antonio Spadaro's essay in La Civilita Cattolica accusing US Catholics of an "ecumenism of hate". More recently, the USCCB condemned papal tailgater Austen Ivereigh's new book
Despite the Herald's expressed hope that the ad limina would begin to heal these wounds, it looks like the opposite is going to happen. It seems the American Catholic Church has not received the "magisterium of Pope Francis" (whatever that is supposed to be).Seen this? @USCCB slate @austeni's new book which "perpetuates an unfortunate and inaccurate myth". Talk about a circular firing squad! https://t.co/hBOSZRZFb6— Mark (@sitsio) November 7, 2019
If one considers this just in regard to Amoris Laetitia. Despite the verbosity of the document, it appeared the whole thing was written to slip in a footnote to facilitate communion for the divorced and remarried - unless there's something I missed. The United States, with 6% of the world’s Catholics, accounts for 60% of the Church’s annulments. There is not other country which as so many "remarried" Catholics.According to the @jdflynn reports from the USCCB meeting, some were using the phrase, “Magisterium of Francis.”— Fr. Josh Miller (@FrJoshMiller) November 12, 2019
There is no such thing, any more than there was a “Magisterium of Benedict” or JPII. There’s simply the magisterium, and that which falls in or out of it.
In 1991 there were 64,000 annulments in the US. The figure was so high that the Vatican had to ask what was going on the US. Along comes Pope Francis and we no longer need an annulment to receive communion if you are remarried.
Ed Condon has an analysis of the turbulent second day of the USCCB Fall General Assembly in Baltimore which highlights the fracture in the bishop's conference. This fracture is mostly plainly evident in the lack of consistent teaching, but Condon's report shows how those divisions play out among the conference.
Papal dauphin & inane SJW burbler Blaise Cupich suggested the insertion of a long paragraph into the text which he suggested would "contextualize" the Church’s position on life issues, and especially the teaching of Pope Francis. The committee considering the amendments, led by the USCCB president-elect Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, agreed to include an abbreviated version of Cupich’s paragraph, including language insisting that the “firm and passionate” defense of the unborn should be matched with support for the “equally sacred” lives of the poor, inform, elderly, and marginalized.
Speaking in support of Cupich, Bishop Robert McElroy told the assembly that he was specifically opposed to the letter’s retention of language calling abortion the “preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself.”
You know McElroy? Defender of LGBT, calumniator of faithful Catholics, enemy of orthodox youth, supporter of "women deacons", anyway, you get the all-too-familiar picture, right?
McElroy told the conference this language was “discordant with the pope’s teaching, if not inconsistent,” and implied that a failure to accept Cupich’s proposed language was tantamount to a breach with the Holy Father’s magisterium.
“It is not Catholic teaching that abortion is the preeminent issue that we face as a world in Catholic social teaching. It is not.”McElroy’s intervention triggered murmurs on the conference floor, with several bishops visibly distressed.
McElroy's not wrong about @pontifex. That's the bigger tragedy. https://t.co/uiPWbvrIh1— Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) November 12, 2019
Thank God - ++Chaput & +Strickland respond to the political machinations of McElroy & Cupich & are met with cheers. The vote is won, but 69 bishops vote for it, which is not good!Archbishop Chaput says this "isn't true" and sets up "an artificial battle" between the conference and the Holy Father.— Ed. Condon (@canonlawyered) November 12, 2019
Chaput's intervention draws applause.
Here's some footage:
This wasn't the only positive intervention made by Bishop Strickland:
Chaput went on firmly to reject McElroy’s implication that recognizing this reality was in any way a breach with the pope, or a failure to present or value his own magisterium.— Mark (@sitsio) November 12, 2019Bravo @Bishopoftyler 👏👏👏👏👏 https://t.co/eUbyNHzkIL
“...I am against anyone saying that our stating that [abortion] is preeminent is contrary to the teaching of the pope, because that isn’t true. It sets up an artificial battle between the bishops’ conference of the United States and the Holy Father which isn’t true.”
“I don’t like the argument Bishop McElroy used, because it isn’t true.”CNA report states that many bishops saw McElroy’s intervention as harmful to the conference and even disingenuous.
“He wants us to think that to disagree with him – or [Cardinal] Cupich – is to disagree with the pope. It’s not true, but it works to undermine the conference leadership,” another bishop told CNA immediately following the vote. “It doesn’t serve communion among us, or with the pope. It’s about personalities and power.”
The final vote on the amendment declined to include Cupich’s longer text, with applause again breaking out when the result was announced, but several bishops approached CNA after the session concluded to express their concerns that the actual substance of the amendment had been obscured by McElroy’s pointed intervention.
one bishop told CNA:
“I had no problem with either [Cupich’s] longer version or [Gomez’s] preferred formulation, but Bishop McElroy suggesting that by calling abortion what it is in our society we are against the pope is absurd.”Condon states that the increasingly serious challenge facing the large majority of U.S. bishops is how to deal with a small minority of their number who seem to be attempting to position themselves between the conference leadership and Rome, and appearing to drive a wedge between them and the pope at the same time.
One final point:
But apparently, anyone who disagrees with the Scalfari befriending, idol worshipping, theology hating, doctrine dodging pope is a racist. Go figure!Note that the US bishops have chosen as their president an archbishhop whom Francis refuses to make a cardinal, thereby insulting the Catholics of Los Angeles and ensuring that the US *still* doesn’t have its first Hispanic cardinal. https://t.co/LYRK9l1Ikl— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) November 12, 2019
Since Austen Ivereigh supports His Excellency's rebuke of the USCCB, there is only one conclusion any sane, sensible and informed Catholic can come to. I don't wish to cause any offence, but I think that, especially bearing in mind Osty's literary pretensions, this can best be summed up by the gist of the front page of Private Eye many years ago when, for reasons I can no longer remember, Sandy Soldyerknitting (whose literary agent you will recall was the renowned Archie Pelican) had annoyed the editor: "Sod off Sollly" PE proclaimed.
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