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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 14, 2014 14:51:10 GMT
There certainly is a Pelagian attitude among some traditionalists.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 14, 2014 20:52:51 GMT
I can think of a few possibilities: (1) Anglophone Catholics are used to being an embattled minority - we may not realise this so much in Ireland, but even in our case part of the intransigence of the pre-Vatican II Irish church rested on awareness of the relentless cultural pressure of the Anglophone World and its predominant Protestantism/ex-Protestantism. US Catholics of course are from immigrant groups who until a generation of two back were very much second fiddle to the WASPS. On the English Catholic historical experience it is enough to say that the Williamsonites in England have given their house journal the title THE RECUSANT. In the English case, awareness of how much the C of E in some respects resembles Catholicism and yet is not Catholic is relevant in looking at the relentless trad boundary maintenance. (One depressing feature of RORATE CAELI and some other trad sites and journals is the way in which they routinely compare "conservative" Catholicism to Anglicanism and the OF Mass, however reverently said, to the Anglican service. That comparison is not really sustainable unless in the last resort you believe that the OF Mass and non-trad Catholics are not any more Catholic than the C of E.) (2)I think apocalypsis - the belief that we are in the Last Days and surrounded by the temptations of Antichrist, who will deceive even the elect - is also relevant. There was a very real siege mentality in the Church between the French Revolution and Vatican II, and the ultra-trad view of themselves alone as the faithful remnant draws on that deep well. I suspect this has been influenced to some extent by cross-pollination from Protestant fundamentalists with their premillennialist view of antichrist's advent being at hand. BTW there are earlier groups who resemble the SSPX - the French petite eglise of the C19 who went into schism rather than recognise the Napoleonic concordat would be an example. Popular folk-Catholicism also has a long history of self-appointed millennial prophets whose understanding of the church's teaching was limited and distorted, and there is quite a significant subculture of individuals and groups of this sort, some of whom grew out of charismatic prayergroups (e.g. after the moving statues phenomenon in Ireland) rather than from the more self-consciously intellectual/sacramental traditionalist milieu en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 28, 2014 20:30:59 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 25, 2014 18:27:27 GMT
The ACP website reproduces a NEW YORK TIMES article by PAul Vallely, Pope Francis' recent biographer, on the impending dual papal canonisation. The piece, in which Mr Vallely gravely chides Pope Francis for not living up to Mr Vallely's expectations of how the Papacy should be run, and informs us that that wicked John Paul II was opposed to Vatican II and that liberals felt "excluded" under his pontificate (as if said liberals were not running large parts of the church bureaucracy in many countries and doing their best to exclude anyone who disagreed with them) gives a very clear sense of the sort of axes which are being ground in Mr Vallely's Pope Francis biography. www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2014/04/the-politics-of-saint-making/This comment from the combox is a rare example of a "liberal" admitting that the real Bl. John XXIII was somewhat different from the image of him which they have projected: EXTRACT Eddie Finnegan April 24th, 2014 at 2:28 pm It seems to me that the 8 Cardinal Advisers had plenty of time to yell, “Francie, STOP!” Time for Rodriguez Maradiaga to get the remaining seven ducks in line. Another thing that keeps bugging me: those of us who quietly canonised Angelo Roncalli fifty years ago, without any carefully staged “Santo Subito!” fleg-waving, need to remember that we only had him for less than 5 years. If he’d hung around for nearly three decades, both he and we might have changed our minds... END Mary Vallely [any relation?] asks "why are so many Popes canonised anyway". The last papal canonisation (Pius X) was about 60 years ago, and before that there hadn't been one since 1712 (Pius V) so one wonders what sort of frequency Mary Vallely would not consider excessive. (Echo answers "Never", no doubt inaccurately.) Indeed Ms Vallely's lament that she finds the canonisation of Popes embarrasses her in front of her Protestant friends, almost suggests that she is embarrassed that the Papacy exists at all. If you think I'm being too hard on Ms Vallely, here is what she actually says: EXTRACT Mary O Vallely April 24th, 2014 at 2:41 pm I have to agree with Paul V and Seamus Ahearne here. I’m extremely uncomfortable about these canonisations as indeed many of us are. However, I can understand Pope Francis’s dilemma and do not envy him his burden of office. God love him too. He can’t please all of us so this trying to balance the liberal and the conservative (and yes, I hate the fact that we put labels on people but we do)is his effort at making the best of it. It cannot be undone now. I wonder too at the shameful haste to declare JPII a saint. Is it a case of, once a saint, you can no longer be subject to criticism? Is that part of the thinking behind the ‘santo subito?’ Why are so many popes canonised anyway? I can see my Protestant friends’ eyebrows raised higher than ever and mine are up there with them too. END
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Post by hibernicus on May 19, 2014 18:02:47 GMT
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 18, 2014 8:12:01 GMT
I hear Mary McAleese has said Pope Francis' consultations of the world's bishops on marriage and the family is bonkers. My question is who asked her?
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 19, 2014 21:11:25 GMT
Today's PHOENIX cover refers to ex-President McAleese's comment
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 19, 2014 21:31:20 GMT
The only sexual choice that can be criticized today is celibacy.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 21, 2014 18:50:50 GMT
I see Pope Francis has declared today that mafiosi (with particular reference to the Calabrian mafiosi called the 'ndrangheta) are excommunicated. www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27956554EXTRACT Pope Francis has condemned the mafia's "adoration of evil" at a mass in Calabria, the southern Italian base of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate. The Pope said the gangsters were effectively "excommunicated" - or banished - in the eyes of the Church. Earlier, the Pope visited the jailed father of a three-year-old boy who had been killed in an apparent mob hit over an unpaid drug debt. The Pope has repeatedly spoken out against organised crime and corruption. His latest condemnation, delivered before a crowd of tens of thousands, described the 'Ndrangheta as the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good". "Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God," the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. "They are excommunicated." END OF EXTRACT Since Fr Tony Flannery recently proclaimed, apropos of the excommunication of some of his lay cronies in Austria who were celebrating what they claimed was Mass, that nobody should ever be excommunicated, that Pope Francis should be ashamed of himself for letting people be excommunicated, and that it only makes the Church look foolish, perhaps he will now speak up on behalf of the "poor, persecuted" Mafiosi. Perhaps they might get a better press if they called themselves the Association of Calabrian Catholics, and argued that since the Ten Commandments are regularly broken they should now be repealed? If Fr Flannery really believes no-one should ever be excluded from the church no matter what they say or do, then that must include the mafia. If he doesn't include the mafia, perhaps he should think a bit more before rattling away at his keyboard. www.tonyflannery.com/the-church-still-excommunicating-people/EXTRACT It is past time that the Church stopped excommunicating people. This process had real effect some centuries ago, when it could be followed with the sort of punishments the Inquisition specialised in, or when people believed that the Church had the power to decide on a person’s eternal salvation. But today it only serves to make the Church lose more credibility, and even to look foolish. It is disturbing that Pope Francis seems to have been involved in this action. How can he on the one hand say that the Church is not a tollhouse, but the house of the Father where everyone is welcome with all their problems, and then decree that certain people are expelled and cannot partake of the sacraments or other ministrations of the Church. This action, coming so soon after Cardinal Meuller’s latest intemperate attack on the U.S. nuns, is in danger of making the liberating words of Pope Francis begin to sound like empty rhetoric. If he turns out to be a man of words only, with no actions to back them up, the effects on the Church will, in my view, be disastrous. Please God this will not be the case. The next few months will tell a lot. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 23, 2014 21:59:35 GMT
Fr Zuhlsdorf notes the ultra-liberal sexually-obsessed webzine SALON has just denounced Pope Francis for being just as "sexist, homophobic" etc as Benedict XVI because he won't declare abortion (alias "healthcare") the Eighth Sacrament. To be dispraised by these is no small praise: wdtprs.com/blog/2014/06/liberals-hating-on-pope-francis-who-just-refuses-to-get-with-their-agenda/In other news: EXTRACT Tony Flannery @flannerytony Mary McAleese losing hope in any real reform with Francis. Thinks October synod will be a failure Céret, Pyrénées-Orientales END OF EXTRACT How very wicked of the Pope not to do whatever Mary McAleese and Tony Flannery tell him - as if he, not they, were infallible! Gratias agamus.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 23, 2014 22:13:04 GMT
"Francis mania" seems to have settled down a bit.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 23, 2014 18:45:21 GMT
I should have said this earlier but I have been moving around a lot. Pope Francis' meeting with the clerical abuse victims is very welcome, and hopefully it will (among other things) allay fears that he might see clerical abuse as a "First World" issue less urgent than the problems facing the poorer nations (of which his pastoral experience makes him aware.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 31, 2014 22:42:34 GMT
LMS Chairman Joseph Shaw suggests that Pope Francis's skills are primarily those of a politician (whereas Pope Benedict was primarily a theologian and St John Paul II a philosopher). This is not meant as an insult - these are legitimate skills - and Dr Shaw suggests the advantages and disadvantages of the Francis style. Once again, note I link to this only as an interesting suggestion and do not necessarily endorse Dr Shaw's analysis www.lmschairman.org/2014/07/pope-francis-politician.html
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 3, 2014 7:12:26 GMT
An interesting little piece arguing that what Popes Francis and Benedict have in common can be understood by reference to the critique of modern incoherence and relativism by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre: ethikapolitika.org/2014/03/10/francis-benedict-macintyre/Incidentally, this passage is very well taken: EXTRACT ...This brings me finally to what I called “a common style of Catholic commentary”—deliberately allowing for ambiguity as between commentary on Catholic matters and commentary by Catholics. There is a particular aspect of press representation of Catholicism in general, and of Popes in particular, that is problematic quite apart from whether it is critical or favourable; and that is the almost universal practice of speaking of “conservatives” and “liberals,” and less frequently of “traditionalists” and “progressives.” The latter pair tend to be used more by some Catholics themselves, which is worse since they ought to know better. These two pairs of contrasting descriptions are drawn from politics and from cultural classification and are not as such religious categories. Their use is an importation from political news coverage and it derives in recent times from North America. [IT ORIGINATED IN COVERAGE OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL BY SELF-CONSCIOUSLY "LIBERAL" JOURNALISTS - HIB] When a new U.S. President comes into office he surrounds himself with staff who are signed up to his policies and there is a clear-out of those associated with his predecessor. This is always so if the Presidents are of different parties but it happens to some degree even when they are on the same side. [BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS IS TRUE TO A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT EXTENT OF PRIME-MINISTERIAL SYSTEMS AS WELL - HIB] American commentators are so used to this and to depicting leaders as more or less conservative or liberal that they thoughtlessly apply this distinction to the issue of the Papacy or other levels of leadership in the Church. On this basis we have to endure a narrative according to which John Paul II was conservative, Benedict XVI was an arch-conservative, and traditionalist, and Pope Francis is a liberal and progressive. And since the opinion-forming media is itself liberal and progressive, or prides itself on being such, then it thinks it sees in Pope Francis a like-minded leader. This explains the headline accounts of his interviews as announcing policy change and commentary pieces speculating on revisions and perhaps abandonments of old teachings. Such a level of media reporting and reflection is lazy, ignorant, and wishful and it rises to the level of scandal when it is perpetrated by Catholic commentators. I have shown that the two Popes, like MacIntyre, are concerned by a degradation in moral thought effected by relativism; but equally all three see a need for cultural critique. That critique has no place for and will be inhibited by defining itself in terms of or in relation to “conservatism” or “liberalism,” “traditionalism” or “progressivism.” Indeed the ubiquity of those terms and the insensibility they induce in those who favour them are part of what such a critique needs to combat. It will not be an easy task, but the examples are there to inspire us. END
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 27, 2014 8:14:47 GMT
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