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Post by hibernicus on Aug 25, 2018 19:25:50 GMT
BTW Douthat's book on Pope Francis is now on sale in Hodges Figgis, though as a hardback it may be a bit expensive. I haven't ever seen the other two "conservative" critiques of Francis (by Sire/Colonna and by Lawlor) so can't assess them.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 25, 2018 19:40:54 GMT
I won't be in the Phoenix Park tomorrow because my (minor) health problems won't be helped by walking for miles and standing for hours. I'm content with my regular Sunday encounter with God in church. Though I don't have health problems, that's pretty much the same reason I'm not going-- it sounds like a bit of an ordeal. Michael Kelly said on RTE that one of the reasons there would be a smaller crowd is that people today have greater expectations of comfort and convenience. I certainly do! I'm happy to watch on TV. I saw him pass by in Ballymun. There was a fairly good crowd for it. Yes, he IS the Pope, whatever reservations I may have about his pontificate. I think he is a good man.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 27, 2018 20:28:03 GMT
I think his style of governance is very flawed ; he relies too much on favouritism. There are stormy waters ahead. Given the emphasis being placed by the journalists on the gaps in the crowd at the Park, I half wish I'd gone - only half because I was visiting a sick elderly relative, so I don't feel any guilt about it.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 27, 2018 21:03:18 GMT
Much as I deplore Francis Derangement Syndrome, it seems to me that the Pope is handling the latest wave of clerical abuse and cover-up disclosures and allegations very poorly. When Francis was elected I was worried that a Third World Pope might see the abuse scandals as a First World issue and not give them sufficient weight. His initial actions reassured me, but now I'm afraid I might have been right first time. BTW here's an example of Francis Derangement Syndrome. On his recent visit to the Baltic States, Pope Francis was reported as joking in conversation that the Poles prefer John Paul II to him - "he's a saint and I'm the devil". One particularly rabid traditionalist blog which I won't name reported this under the heading "POPE ADMITS HE'S THE DEVIL".
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Post by maolsheachlann on Sept 27, 2018 21:06:36 GMT
Much as I deplore Francis Derangement Syndrome, it seems to me that the Pope is handling the latest wave of clerical abuse and cover-up disclosures and allegations very poorly. When Francis was elected I was worried that a Third World Pope might see the abuse scandals as a First World issue and not give them sufficient weight. His initial actions reassured me, but now I'm afraid I might have been right first time. BTW here's an example of Francis Derangement Syndrome. On his recent visit to the Baltic States, Pope Francis was reported as joking in conversation that the Poles prefer John Paul II to him - "he's a saint and I'm the devil". One particularly rabid traditionalist blog which I won't name reported this under the heading "POPE ADMITS HE'S THE DEVIL". Such mad trads don't have Francis Derangement Syndrome. They have generalized derangement syndrome.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 10, 2018 21:10:20 GMT
Indeed, and that is one reason why they are ignored even when they make legitimate criticisms.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 26, 2018 18:02:22 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 29, 2018 22:06:45 GMT
This piece (by an American political conservative, just to point out that I know it comes from a particular political perspective) raises serious questions about how Pope Francis has (mis)handled the agreement with China. Admittedly, the Vatican has to deal with some very unpleasant people and regimes for the general good of the church, but this agreement seems not only to be an epic sell-out of the underground church, but to give all its concessions upfront while getting little or nothing definite in return. At least with the concordats with Napoleon and Hitler (both had features which were questionable to say the least) it could be argued (mistakenly) that the regimes would fear to antagonise their large Catholic populations by breaking their agreements too blatantly: www.crisismagazine.com/2018/pope-francis-cardinal-mindszenty-treatment-china
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 9, 2018 21:21:44 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 13, 2019 23:07:57 GMT
Rod Dreher has some scathing comments on Pope Francis's handling of the latest abuse crisis, and links to a FIRST THINGS article by RR Reno arguing that some of the more problematic aspects of Francis's papacy derive from Jesuit spirituality. (For example: the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES apparently encourage decisive decisions which are intuitive rather than fully worked out, presumably to avoid the indecisiveness which characterises many academics such as your humble servant; Jesuits in discussion with people they are trying to influence will often make apparently shocking concessions in order to engage with them, in the hope of eventually leading them further in; Jesuits have a "special forces" or "commando" mentality which often downplays the role of parishes and other instituitions.) This is posted for information/discussion. Please bear in mind that Dreher left Catholicism for Orthodoxy over the scandals and hence has his own viewpoint (I might add that Jesuit spirituality is in some respects quite contrasting to Eastern Orthodoxy) and that Pope Francis' preference for "mission over maintenance" in terms of evangelisation may reflect the fact that "maintenance" is not doing too well at present in Europe and Latin America. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pope-francis-february-vatican-sex-abuse-catholicism/
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 9, 2019 21:29:44 GMT
Since Pope Francis has taken a lot of stick for the unfortunately-ambiguous statement he signed in the UAE about diversity of religions being God's will, it may be of interest to see this article by a secular commentator discussing the significance of the UAE visit. Basically, the writer points out that having a Pope visit, and say Mass in public in, the Arabian peninsula is a very big deal indeed and that Pope Francis is trying to take advantage of the gulf rulers' need to distance themselves from more populist forms of Islamism to secure some degree of better treatment and religious toleration for Christian migrant workers in the Gulf states, who notoriously are treated like dirt. I think Pope Francis is often cack-handed, but here he really seems to be doing something good and should be given understanding. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/why-pope-francis-visiting-united-arab-emirates/582088/
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 13, 2019 21:58:53 GMT
I must say that the comments of some trads on the recent incident where Pope Francis got down and kissed the feet of the leaders of South Sudan (who have reduced their country to wreckage in a squalid ethnic struggle for loot and murdered thousands of their fellow-citizens between them) are another example of Francis Derangement Syndrome. (I will not link to such comments as I don't want to promote them.) Francis here made a really Christlike appeal to these scoundrels, presumably in the hope that such dramatic self-abasement might move their hard hearts - certainly nothing else is likely to do so. Someone who can't see the difference between this and (for example) the ways in which Francis spitefully humiliates people he doesn't like is not really fit to comment on him at all. Pope Francis is a mixed bag of good and bad, and discernment is needed in dealing with him. That's why I so rarely comment on him in detail - I just don't know enough. wdtprs.com/blog/2019/04/pope-francis-kneels-kisses-the-feet-of-the-leader-of-south-sudan/
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 3, 2019 16:25:17 GMT
I'm increasingly coming to believe that the attitude of many Catholics to Pope Francis (including, all too often, myself) has gone way too far in the direction of dissidence and rebelliousness.
I cannot logically conceive of any principle of unity and authority in the Church other than the Pope.
We all know that the Pope can err when he is not speaking ex cathedra, but it seems as though this has now become justification for a kind of contemptuous attitude towards him at all times, in many quarters. It's the opposite of the principle of charity-- whatever he says is given the worst possible interpretation.
I can't get past the words of Lumen Gentium: "In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."
What's interesting is that Pope Francis is dismissed even when previous Popes have said similar things. For instance, both John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI spoke about our stewardship of the Earth. And yet Pope Francis is condemned as being a Gaia worshipper for issuing Laudato Si'.
As challenging as I find the pontificate of Pope Francis, and as much as I wish he would speak with much more clarity, I'm going to make a greater effort to show him docility and respect, especially when he is continuing and developing the ideas of the previous Popes. For instance, I have come to accept (after great difficulty) the change in the Catechism regarding the death penalty as a legitimate development of doctrine.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 11, 2019 20:37:14 GMT
Picked up a second-hand copy of George Neumayr's critique of Francis, THE POLITICAL POPE. I'm sorry to say it was exactly what I thought it would be - a polemic based on the assumption that Catholic orthodoxy and US conservatism are absolutely synonymous and any departure from the second is necessarily a departure from the first. The treatment of the Latin American context is risible (reference to Francis having grown up in "socialist Argentina", which implies Peronism is simply a form of socialism and makes no reference at all to the bloody military dictatorship of the 70s and 80s, even though he quotes someone sugesting Francis' view of communists is influenced by encountering them under persecution but not in power; St Oscar Romero was not conventionally "left-wing"). Neumayr denounces Cardinal Roger Mahony of LA not for his abysmal handling of clerical abuse, but for being a "Cesar Chavez acolyte" as if Chavez' attempt to organise exploited Hispanic fruitpickers into an union to secure better conditions was self- evidently evil. (Chavez had flaws, especially when he developed a personality cult in his later years, but he was a devout Catholic and, I might note, pro-life. Since Neumayr goes into hysterics denouncing anyone who has pro-immigration views he might note that Chavez encouraged his union members to turn in illegal immigrants because they were used by the fruitgrowers to undercut union labour.) Neumayr claims that liberation theology was not merely encouraged by the Soviet bloc (which is plausible) but invented by it, which is ridiculous, and he omits to mention that while condemning some forms of liberation theology JPII and BXVI expressly stated that it had legitimate forms and addressed real concerns. I noticed several factual errors - the egregious Cardinal Braz do Aviz was originally appointed to the Congregation on Religious Life by Benedict XVI, not by Francis; Bella Dodd's claims about communist infiltration of the Church were not made when she testified before a congressional committee, but much later and in private. Basically it's a cut and paste job whose sources are handled uncritically. There are some legit points - it's chilling that in 2017 he notes Cardinal McCarrick as someone who had been sidelined but restored to favour under Francis - but in general I would treat this book with extreme caution.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 30, 2019 22:06:25 GMT
As this thread will show, I am reluctant to criticise Pope Francis but he really has handled the alleged pachamama idols at the Amazon Synod very badly. It is possible that these statues are not in fact idols but religious symbols used in a Catholic sense, but the Pope seems to operate on the assumption that he can engage in potentially problematic behaviour and doesn't owe anyone an explanation. The result is that he has repeatedly given scandal, not just to trads but to groups outside the Church - as a result of the statuettes and his latest unfortunate contacts with Mr Scalfari, we have Protestant evangelists in Latin America and the Philippines circulating video of the Vatican Gardens ceremony as "proof" that Catholicism is idolatrous, while some Orthodox bloggers on the Russian side in the Moscow-Constantinople dispute are claiming the Pope is an Arian heretic on the basis of Scalfari's claim that Jesus was not God during the Incarnation, and are using this to attack both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Greek-Catholic church for having anything to do with the alleged heretic. Even if Francis's closing summary of the Synod turns out perfectly orthodox, significant harm will have been done to the Faith on the ground.
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