"Who is John Galt?" Ayn Rand asked in the first two parts of her novel Atlas Shrugged, which William Buckley rightly called 1,400 pages of "ideological fabulism." Since the Synod in Rome, many are asking "Who is Bruno Forte?", the archbishop who penned the notorious paragraphs on divorce and homosexuality which the bishops rejected. The blog Athanasius Contra Mundum has written a post answering that very question.
Spark Notes version: he was reared in the Pacelli Church, ordained after the Council, educated by Kasper at Tubingen, fell under the spell of Cardinal Martini, worked his way into Vatican politics through his German background, played ball during Benedict's papacy, and has now found his place working under Francis.
Tip of the biretta to Mighty Joe Young who referred me to this page.
No more talk of the Synod!
The only mention I'll make of the synod is in this comment.
ReplyDeleteI think that, from this point forward, the following things should happen:
1. Kasper, the German bishops, American Bishops, Latin American bishops, and Austrian Bishops need to be escorted out and attend a mandatory Children's Catechism class taught by Bp. Fellay. The pain Fellay will experience from dealing with them should be more than sufficient penance for any sins of disobedience, real or perceived.
2. From this point forward, only the African bishops, Polish bishops, and Eastern Patriarchs are allowed to contribute to the synod's content. Everyone else can take nice spoonful of SHUT THE HELL UP.
I will say, though, it gives me great delight to watch the hand-wringing, panic, and flurry of contradictory positions (they seem to be wavering between between ultramontanist sweating and SSPX-sympathy) underway at Rorate Coeli.
/comment over
For a second I entertained the hope that you were going to write a post on Rand. That would be far more entertaining than anything to do with the Synod.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, John Gault: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gault; John Galt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt.
Fixed!
DeleteA post on Ayn Rand might be interesting, a question as to why so many American Catholics sympathize with libertarianism (not that I am a distributist).
My own take is not as positive as Lord of Bollocks. I think that what will happen is that Pope Francis will bide his time; get ride of the problem bishops who worked against him, and do what liberals always do. Call another synod, which will simply rubber stamp everything he wants. I think the next few years will see a fairly large number of "conservative" bishops demoted or retired, to be replaced by liberals. I think the revolution is going to happen,and it will make Vatican I appear to have been quite conservative in comparison.
ReplyDeleteThe liturgy has already been destroyed, now faith and practice are next.
I am, by nature, a pessimist.
Me, positive?!
DeleteThat's a first.
Actually, I think we may both be on the same page!
DeleteOh, I did mean Vatican II, but I'm not to fond of Vatican I either!
DeleteActually, Vatican I is widely misunderstood. It was a defeat for the ultramontanist aspirations of Pius IX though it was, to quote Wellington, "a near run thing". We have the moderates, including Newman and the Melkite Patriarch, to thank for it.
DeleteUnfortunately, many perceived it as a total victory for the ultramontanists. You can definitely see it when you read the ignorant papalotrist reasoning of the sedevacantists.
Archbp. Forte is proof indeed that modernism fairly flourished under Pope Pius XII, sometimes with direct encouragement from on high.
ReplyDeleteBack to ultramontanism. I think this Synod has been a welcome tonic for its more extreme manifestations among "conservative" Catholic commentators, men who could give William Ward (who famously wished that he might have a "new Papal Bull every morning with my Times at breakfast") a run for his money - not just a new encyclical for every meal, but but also off-the-cuff homilies and random comments made in the hallway. Just yesterday, the Holy Father was insisting on a "absolute condemnation" of capital punishment, never mind the entire weight of the Magisterial Tradition on this, even in its most current manifestation in the Catechism. It's a sermon, guys; it has no dogmatic import, no matter how many cockels it warms over at the Commonweal offices.
I tend to share Lord of Bollocks' assessment of Vatican I. Not that it matters now: ultramontanism has been superseded by papalotry. The habits of healthy relationships with Peter have been eviscerated by two centuries of papal centralization and cults of personality. Now we're rediscovering the dangers of a truly problematic pontiff, a possibility clean forgotten by so many Catholics of today, but all too real at various points in our history, alas.