Placuit Franciscum

The speculation of a new papal encyclical hitting the shelves at the start of this month sadly fizzled out when a letter from the CDF to the bishops was released instead. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been a rather dull affair since Ratzinger temporarily moved up in the world. Cdl. Joseph was an unexpected lightning rod for accusations of doctrinal extremism and fundamentalism, but Apb. Ladaria has scarcely created a ripple in the pond since his appointment.

The letter Placuit Deo warns the bishops against the rising dual threats of neo-Pelagianism and neo-Gnosticism, clearly the most immanent threats against the Pax Romana in our day. The concern is so palpable that neither the USCCB nor the local diocese can be bothered to comment upon it on their websites. Meanwhile, the pope’s “ten steps backwards” approach to sexual abuse allegations remains unrectified and he continues to stand erect as an equal in the presence of Almighty God.

It is a good year to give up reading Catholic news and commentary for Lent. The traddies have no shortage of material to work with, the liberals never lose cause for celebration, and the sycophants never stop praising the powerful while giving lip service to the Faith the powerful are disintegrating. The worst part of reading news from the Vatican and bishops conferences is the logical consequence of reading between the lines. After decades of obfuscation, doctrinal creativity, sexual scandals, and imposition of truly bad taste, one infallibly comes to the conclusion that many if not most of the men running the Church simply hate us.

In many ways this realization is liberating. Accepting it makes sense of many horrors that would remain otherwise unintelligible. Popes, bishops, and parish priests demand an obedience which is used to slap defenders of the Faith, to dismantle Tradition in all its aspects, and ultimately to bully those with evidence of clerical reprobation into silence. Accusations of cynicism—usually coming from the sycophants—should not prevent one from being on guard against the enemy within the gates. We cannot be too careful for our safety, the safety of our loved ones, and even the safety of good priests and religious who stand in danger of intrigues.

As the prayers of Compline remind us, the Devil goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Sometimes he wears the skin of a lion, sometimes that of a serpent, and sometimes that of a spiritual father demanding docility. “Be sober and watch.”

Saturn Devouring His Son, Peter Paul Rubens

Picking Sides

“Wizards are always troubled about the future. I do not like worrying about the future. I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me.”

The busybodies of online Christendom are forever insistent on side-picking. In the eternal struggle between Them & Apollyon, there is little patience for those engaged in unhasty thought and deliberation, those who watch and pray, those who are not swift to judge and are willing to work within the established rules. Cdl. Burke has been viciously insulted by those who lack the capacity for longsuffering, and others who will not sign the correction for various reasons are despised for their tardiness. These gadflies do have a point that consideration must eventually lead into action, but not all action is wise even if it is well-intended, and not all delay is cowardly or lethargic.

Hasty action ends, more times than not, in regrettable situations. It ends in pro-choice conservative candidates. It ends with a charismatic young actor in the papacy. It ends in the trusted white wizard devastating your forest to fuel his war machines. It ends with hands covered in blood or a belly full of hemlock.

The whole Western world has turned activist. Long gone are the days when common folk could keep to themselves and fight only when fought against, or when forced to fight by their rulers. The half-educated are propagandists who exploit the wrath of the quarter-educated with crafty slogans and long-buried resentments. We are rending the Church apart over a footnote inserted by a devil, but have more than a few dozen across the globe even bothered to read Amoris Laetitia in its entirety? Who would even care to do so, when the next papacy or the one after that will overturn it? Our days would be better spent reading The City of God or even Tolkien's Silmarillion than the doorstops printed by the Vatican press.

Is the age of activism better than the previous age of passive clericalism? Perhaps in some aspects, but it is scarcely a lasting solution. The earlier sense of lay people that they were comfortably sheltered from the occasional madness of their betters by the mere fact of their lower station has been eroded by the artificial elevation of the laity. There is no escape from the news cycle, nor from the demand of busybodies that they must decide on Important Issues without delay and without sufficient education. Suspension of judgment is considered unacceptable when all people are required to choose between polar positions that did not even exist mere weeks before.

Lay siege to Isengard and imprison the mischievous wizard within, if that is necessary for the world's safety. Make sure that Wormtongue is captured as well. Enjoy the peace of good Shire tobacco while the enemy screams and withers away.

Brotherly Correction

The recent publication of the Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis of 40 scholars and clergy to P. Francis, originally presented to the pontiff early last month, is causing some minor waves in Catholic society. While this correction produces indisputable evidence of material error issuing forth from the current pontificate, the response from the pope and his entourage is likely to be similar to that given to the steady stream of corrections, appeals, and dubia thus far: dismissive mockery followed by silence.

Still, responses of this sort—explicit, thorough, and precise—are necessary and helpful in other ways. They are helpful for the multitude of lay Catholics who remain confused and hurt by the pope's apparent madness, and feel timid or impious at the thought of making their concerns heard. They are helpful also for those who have steadfastly ignored all but the most benign words coming from Rome, since the most essential Franciscan errors are now very helpfully collected, summarized, and explained. Willfully ignorant Catholics are prodded to pull their heads out of the dirt and pay attention to reality. The signatories do not allow the Holy Father to get away with his careless words spoken in interviews, nor with his silence in response to the "implementations" of episcopal conferences.

That this correctio is being published during the quincentenary of Fr. Luther's revolution is not lost on its authors. There is a rather extensive section on "The Influence of Martin Luther" in the document (p. 12f), and it is worth nearly as much consideration as the marriage-related material.

Pray for the signatories. Pray for the pope. Only truth and repentance will heal these wounds. "For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Fox in the Henhouse

Pictured: Staff writers of the Aleteia website.

The Franciscan Reign of Terror has been somewhat eclipsed recently by the antics of the new American president, but the denial-of-service attacks on our intellects by P. Bergoglio continue to buzz in the background. He releases interviews, twitter posts, and ghostwritten encyclicals with a publication cycle that would have made John Paul envious. The sycophants of the Catholic blogging, radio, and magazine worlds refuse to acknowledge any evidence that Francis "The Fox" Bergoglio is anything but praiseworthy; meanwhile, the open-eyed commentators, trad or not, are increasingly alarmed. Even Mr. Corbinian's Bear, Esq. is toying with the thought of sedevacantism as a reasonable alternative to accepting the current bishop of Rome as legitimate. (Congratulations are in order for his recently published novel, by the way.)

Most of us in Tradistan are content to get the dismay out of our systems with a bit of occasional sarcasm and delight at the thought of the pope's eventual resignation. I do not think highly of the thesis that P. Benedict's resignation was invalid, and generally consider the thesis of sedevacantism to be a cheap form of escapism that absolves the believer of the burdensome responsibility of piety towards an unworthy leader.

But the problem of a bad pope is merely the extension of the problem of bad bishops and bad priests. Rare is the layman who does not have horror stories of parish priests and pastors, whether of clearly unorthodox preaching, two-facedness, or outright perversion. Rare, too, is the Catholic who can boast a bishop worthy of imitation or admiration. Why do lower-level Catholics who have found ways to mentally and emotionally survive under bad clerics find it impossible to tolerate a bad pope?

Until Francis, the "JP2, We Love You" crowd could at least pretend that the papacy was mostly fine. They had to do a little see-no-evil, hear-no-evil to accomplish that end, but it was possible. Everyone has his breaking point, and Francis is proving to be the breaking point of many. Some of the usual ultramontanist suspects are wondering when the pope will answer the dubia (likely never), in the hopes that they can get back to their comfortable papal adoration.

One of the few Youtube videographers I follow regularly is Hans Feine, M.Div. of the Illinois-based Lutheran Satire account. His "Frank the Hippie Pope" character neatly summarizes the difficulty of working constant damage control on an out-of-control pontiff. But even the "Hippie Pope" is a whitewash of the real man, appearing in the cartoon merely as a doped up halfwit instead of a sly intellect. In reality he is a bull in the china shop, a snake in the grass, a fox in the henhouse.

But again, so what? We will always have to learn how to live with weak or evil rulers. We will always have to learn how to not simply survive but thrive under their burdensome scandal. When one reads the chronicles of the ancient kings of Israel and Judah, rare was the monarch who did not do evil in the sight of the Lord; should we expect it to be any different today? Let us file our formal complaints and move on to the hard work of perfecting ourselves and our societies, and the harder work of converting the lost to the true Church. Innocent as doves, yet clever as serpents—how else will we keep the foxes from devouring us whole?

Where's a good bear when you need one?

Francis' Trinitarian Theology

This needs little comment from the peanut gallery, as the selection speaks for itself. This is from an article on Crux about an Argentinian theologian who thinks she understands and can explain the thought of P. Francis.

She [Dr. Emilce Cuda] says Francis urged them to do theological ethics with a “hermeneutic of unity in difference,” an idea that the network has already embraced before his election. It’s a theme that recurs in the pope’s intellectual passions: creating processes in which the Holy Spirit forges new synthesis out of disparities and disagreements.

In the meeting, the pope jokingly likened this to the way the Holy Trinity functions. “Inside the Holy Trinity they’re all arguing behind closed doors,” Cuda says Francis told them, “but on the outside they give the picture of unity.”

Cuda says his comparison made her think of something more earthy attributed to Argentina’s famous leader Juan Domingo Perón. “In Peronism, when they hear cats shrieking, people outside think they’re fighting; in fact, they’re reproducing.”

There are few words for this kind of casual blasphemy, only a rising desire to do a great deal of penance. God have mercy on us all.

A Christmas Gift for Francis

(or, Why I Finally Cancelled My Subscription to The Remnant)

(It's not scowling, just a bad case of RBF.)

I’m sure our readers are just about exhausted by my constant writings about Roman Pontiffs who have reigned in my lifetime. Consider it a last-minute Advent penance on my part. Since there’s nowhere left to go but down, let’s finish this trilogy with Pope Grinch himself, Francis the First.

Most recently P. Francis has been in the news for his utter silence on the four Cardinals’ Dubia delivered three months ago, while talking nonstop at the meeting of the Roman Curia. A more recent comment by Cdl. Raymond Burke to Catholic World Report is very interesting in that regard:

Cardinal Burke: If a Pope would formally profess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope. It’s automatic. And so, that could happen.

CWR: That could happen. 

Cardinal Burke: Yes.

CWR: That’s a scary thought. 

Cardinal Burke: It is a scary thought, and I hope we won’t be witnessing that at any time soon.[…] 

CWR: Who is competent to declare him to be in heresy? 

Cardinal Burke: It would have to be members of the College of Cardinals.

The opinion that a Roman pope who has fallen into formal heresy would automatically lose the Seat of Peter is a popular one among trads, and has been revived from the opinion of Robert Bellarmine and other Counter Reformation-era speculative theologians. This opinion, interesting as it is, will butt heads with Canon 1404 of the current Code (“The First See is judged by no one”) if it is ever invoked, and it is also far from a proven opinion.

For myself, I am of the opinion that the gift of doctrinal preservation promised to the Successors of Simon Peter extends to preventing a reigning Roman Pontiff from declaring himself as a formal heretic, although he might very well be a material heretic (as many past popes have been). The most likely response of P. Francis to this Dubia is indefinite silence, and far less likely is an admission of wrongdoing and of having privately held to material heresy. If Papa Bergoglio does in fact formally insist on heresy by the end of this process, I do not know how Cdl. Burke intends to act as an expert on something that has never happened, but I guess God is a God of Surprises, still.

~

Last January I returned from Christmas vacation to find the latest issue of The Remnant waiting for me in my mailbox. I had subscribed a few months prior, because I frequently enjoyed reading their online articles, and felt their work worthy of compensation. I found, though, that their printed articles were often more sloppy than the online selection. Chris Ferrara Esq.’s articles, for instance, are always printed as formatted for web posting, complete with blue, underlined phrases that, shockingly enough, cannot be clicked when on newsprint. Many of their articles lacked basic fact-checking, and the editorial staff continuously ignored my emails requesting clarification and correction.

The final straw came in the December 25, 2015 issue, with Dr. John Rao’s article “A Very Different Francis on a Christmas Long Ago.” It contrasted St. Francis of Assisi with the reigning pontiff, particularly with the pope’s recent removal of the crèche during Advent’s environmentalist light show. (Dr. Rao’s article has since been posted on his website, although it incorrectly dates the issue of publication as Dec. 15.) While I may have agreed with his opinions on the hiding of Baby Jesus, the following passage threw me for a loop:

“Thud” is the only musical tone that accompanies the pastoral approach offered Catholics and the world at large in Christmastide, 2015 under the reign of a pope who took his name from Francis. That “thud” is the sound that emerges from men’s minds and hearts plunging downwards from St. Francis’s effort to understand and celebrate nature by looking at it through the Word made flesh.

Did you notice it, too? No, not the hyperbolic rhetoric that would never convince anyone not already convinced, but a little detail that certainly should not have escaped the eye of a professional historian:

The problem with the pope’s message in Christmastide, 2015 is that he is singing the modern song of “thud”. He is calling, in practice, for the need for a “correction” and “transformation” of Catholic doctrine to aid in the “restoration of all things” not in Christ but “in fallen nature”. He is not telling us to pay homage to the child in the crèche and accept His corrective and transforming Social Kingship. He is not speaking in a Christ-centered fashion.

A rant about P. Francis’s errors committed in Christmastide, 2015? Almost certainly written even before Christmas (the actual day this season begins)? Dr. Rao must be an historian of the future! The only possible event prior to publication which Rao could have been talking about was the 2015 Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, during which Francis clearly venerates the Christ Child and carries him to the crèche. He even says in his sermon that “We must set out to see our Savior lying in a manger,” for goodness’ sake!

Yes, of course Rao was referring to events in Advent 2015, not Christmastide, but a prosecutor’s case is built on a multitude of small details. When the legal team screws up details like these, all evidence is rendered inadmissible. The Remnant editorial crew habitually allows small but critical errors to find publication in their pages, and every time they do so, they lose more credibility.

Come on, fellow Trads. Seek the true, not the inflammatory. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That’s what the Church really needs for Christmas.

That and Benedict's cool Santa hat. He took it with him when he left.

Friday Miscellany

"I go to Rome to be crucified again."

Jones vs. Voris

In an hour-long interview with a YouTuber, Eugene Michael Jones repeats much of his anti-Voris rant verbally. (For those interested, I reviewed that book at length here and here.) The strangest new thing he says in this video is that it's much better to be an off-camera writer than an on-camera opinionater, in terms of avoiding excesses of vainglory. See around the 35-minute mark, where Jones opines that writing more readily lends itself to reflection than talking to a camera. My experience of reading many blogs—not to mention Jones's essays—argues otherwise.

Papal Intentions

Sometimes I wonder at what point it becomes questionably moral to pursue a plenary indulgence. As we all know, such an indulgence requires praying for the pope's monthly intentions. P. Francis's most recent prayer intention is that all countries would be successfully bullied into accepting refugees. In a month when we are encouraged to pray for the dead and win indulgences for their repose, it is most unfortunate that the pope has tried to guilt Catholics everywhere into asking God to fulfill his questionable vision of world politics.

Tolkien's Love Story

May 2017 will see the publication of Dr. Tolkien's story of Beren and Lúthien as a standalone tale, much as his son did with The Children of Hurin. I think that many of his stories work better separated from their original Silmarillion framework than as cogs in a larger machine, and I expect this will be one such example. Maybe I'm just looking forward to the version of the story where Sauron is a giant evil cat.

Descent into Hell

Mel Gibson has officially confirmed plans for a sequel to The Passion of the Christ, which, for all its flaws, remains my favorite religious movie. He hints at the inclusion of Jesus's descent into the Limbo of the Fathers as a kind of dramatic backdrop to what could otherwise be an action-light story. One hopes that Gibson will not present a Balthasarized version of the Descensus Christi ad Inferos, but only time will tell. I am also expecting good things from his new film Hacksaw Ridge.

The Ghost of Counter-Reformation Past

Speaking of the legacy of Hans Urs von Balthasar, a blogger at Bp. Barron's Word on Fire website has written a rather scathing criticism of the celebration of Reformation Day. There's no mention of the pope's imprudent gestures in this regard, but it's good that even clericalist-leaning apologists are willing to break ranks with the usual back-slapping now and then.

Shunned at Lund

The phone is a metaphor.

I have been watching parts of the 2-hour long video of P. Francis's visit to the far-left Lutherans in Sweden. It's difficult to explain why. Maybe I feel like doing something penitential on All Soul's Day. This bit at the very beginning caught my attention, where the pope is protected from the touch of the dirty masses by his bodyguard and the Humblemobile:

The "ecumenical event" as a whole is about as dull and self-congratulatory as one would expect. The crowd is very pleased to see the bishop of Rome in their midst, praying with their leaders and acting like one of them. Much of the event is taken up by marching out minorities and women from third-world countries to beg for money and "gender justice," with terrifying musical interludes in between.

The Lutheran leaders blame the Holy Spirit for this meeting while talking at excruciating length about their feelings. I'm surprised they don't blame Him for climate change because of the neo-pentecostal flames.

They seem to have paid top dollar for Swedish opera singer Malena Ernman, who is a pleasure to listen to as long as you don't have to watch the accompanying multimedia presentation. (And probably also as long as you don't understand Swedish.)

P. Francis's speech has little content, but goes on forever. It's like listening to the homily at a suburban American Mass. The speech by the Swedish Prime Minister about optimism creating a "momentum for peace" is more interesting than the pope's.

Selfie stick?

Goodness knows I would have started playing on my phone had I been forced to attend.

There's nearly zero theological content on either the Lutheran or Catholic sides of these mutual monologues, and thus nothing for theologians to complain about aside from the lack of content and the suggestion of indifferentism.

You can also watch the raw footage of the pope arriving and leaving on the tarmac, if you are so inclined. All courtesy of the Vatican's YouTube channel.

Michael Matt has an analysis of the meeting, as well as some extra footage of Francis signing the Declaration of Togetherness. Sadly, he veers off into American politics very quickly, but otherwise it is worth watching.

Until the next ecumenical gathering... To the Humblemobile, Cardinal Koch!

The Chocolate Luther

(source)

The upcoming flesh-press ecumenical gathering between far-left Lutherans and far-left Catholics in Sweden, while nothing new, is becoming increasingly egregious thanks to its anticipated papal participation. While it’s doubtful that P. Francis will be doing or saying anything worse than the Church has already suffered from P. John Paul or even P. Benedict in regards to ecumenical excesses, this celebration of Fr. Luther’s apostasy raises a new cycle of questions about the place of heretics in the modern Church.

No doubt we will shortly be seeing a slew of online articles from Fr. Zuhl, Catholic Answers, and mommy-bloggers explaining all the reasons why this celebration of German cheek does not technically change any doctrines nor the anathemas of Trent. These will ignore the point that Francis’ pontificate does not operate on the level of truth, logic, or definition, but on the level of agitprop and emotional manipulation. When we are bombarded with photographs of Francis smiling next to a chocolate sculpture of the German monk, the unstated implication is that the this man was sweet; that he was black, but beautiful.

Somewhere in the southeast of Rome sits the Scala Sancta, the steps that Christ himself once ascended in order to be condemned by the Roman prefect of Judea. In the early 1510s a young Fr. Luther, zealous for the purity of the Church and deeply scandalized by the corruption of the Roman clergy, climbed the Holy Stairs and despaired. In his own words,

At Rome, I wished to liberate my grandfather from Purgatory, and went up the staircase of Pilate, praying a Pater Noster on each step; for I was convinced that he who prayed thus could redeem his soul. But when I came to the top step, the thought kept coming to me, “Who knows whether this is true?” (source)

Thus did Fr. Luther, fifteen centuries after the fact, echo the words of the devil who inspired Pontius Pilate: “Quid est veritas?” Like Pilate, Luther washed his hands of all his sins—past, present, and future—a self-absolution that his followers imitate to this day. Pilate’s wife had at least made an attempt to stop her husband from shedding innocent blood; Luther was seduced by the disgruntled nun Katharina von Bora, recently escaped from the convent by hiding in a wagon of fish barrels.

Five centuries after Fr. Martin’s moment of despair, and not very long after my reception into the Church, I completed my own pilgrimage up the Scala Sancta in Rome. My meditations on the way up were partly of Christ’s Passion, partly of gratitude for the grace of conversion, but mostly of an utter repudiation of Luther’s mortal doubt. Still, if I had thought about it at the time, I would have prayed instead for the soul of his poor grandfather who was deprived of his progeny’s sacrifices.

The penitential season of Advent is coming soon. Perhaps P. Francis should consider giving up chocolate.

(source)

Congratulations

A happy feast of St. John the Baptist to all, especially readers in England. I congratulate you on asserting your sovereignty.

Update: will there be a "Pontifexit" next? 

He Just Has Bad Knees

While Mr. Grump was unable to attend a Holy Thursday Mass last week, and thus was deprived of his usual immediate occasion of Triduum-related grumpiness, he was pleased to find some photos of the Roman Ordinary doing what he does best: kneeling.

source

This is nothing new, of course. Photos of Padre Jorge kneeling have circulated before now, although most of them have shown him kneeling at a confessional booth or prie-dieu, which are arguably easier than the quicker genuflection required at Mass. The repeated moving and kneeling required for foot-washing, though, must be awfully taxing on one's knees. I know it would be on mine.

The usual Tenebrae service on Spy Wednesday was also unattended by yours truly for practical reasons. Good Friday at least was solemnly celebrated with the proper Vespers, even if the woman in the nearest pew was rather loudly chewing gum throughout. Holy Saturday was spent finishing Dante's magnificent Paradiso—read at the Holy Father's request—and breaking the Lenten fast in diverse and delicious ways. (The Inferno also includes a vivid reminder that Our Lord spent the first Holy Saturday breaking into Hell and stealing all the Devil's most treasured things.)

Mr. Grump had intended to spam the lot of you with a mini-series of St. Joseph-related posts in March, but lacked the energy and choleric enthusiasm. He is considering doing some other hagiographical studies, if he can ever get his books and papers in order.

The Ambitions of Young Franciscus

The question from the altar girl ("How do you get to be so good always, never angry?") is milk-spittingly funny. One wonders which of the cardinals coached her.

As to the ambitions of young Franciscus to be a butcher, one could argue that he has actually achieved his dreams in an unforeseen way.

"The world can improve!" All it needs is a good butcher's cleaver!

(video via Churchpop)