Saturday, June 25, 2016

Pope Francis incredulous remark that priests who concern themselves with sickness of the soul are 'animals'.



From Monsignor Pope:

I would like to make, as a parish priest in trenches, a few remarks concerning the Pope’s recent statements in Rome at a gathering of priests and seminarians. Others have admirably remarked on his troubling remarks on marriage and cohabitation. I will not add to those. But I would like to focus on two other reported remarks the Pope made about priests to the effect that some of us are cruel, are putting our noses into people’s moral life and possibly that he even called some of us animals.



Permit me to state my utter bewilderment at such a notion. As a priest, and especially as a confessor and spiritual director this is my duty! It is true that I am not to unnecessarily pry into the private lives of parishioners. But surely there is a requirement that as a confessor and a pastor I have some sense of the moral life of those to whom I minister.




Yes indeed.

Since putting noses into people's moral life is the role of the royal priesthood, such a statement reveals gross an advanced spiritual depravity, doesn't it.

But it is beyond lamentable that the Pope, as initially reported, should have called priests (or any human being for that matter) “animals.” Such a word should never have come out of his mouth, and I would hope for an apology for this offensive characterization, not merely a Vatican “clarification.” I certainly have some differences with brother priests, I would call my differences with dissenting priests significant. But this does not permit me to call them animals, and the Pope, who seems to have done so, has no business doing it either. Admittedly the recorded comments are hard to follow, but the cleansed Vatican transcript is more in the mode of “Let’s pretend this was never said as recorded” rather than a clear denial—“The Pope wants to say he not consider priest animals, even though he thinks some are too hard-lined on this matter.”

As I've mentioned before, though my youngest was born four years after my marriage, when I sought the Sacrament of Baptism, the pastor did not recognize me and asked if I was practicing my faith. When my answers made clear to him that I had wandered from the Church and Sanctifying Grace, he expressed his reservation to Baptize my daughter. He reminded me of the promises made when parents seek Baptism and straightforward asked if it was my intention to live up to the promises.

These questions opened up the door to my conversion of the heart.

Even in my own rebellion with teaching on contraception, I made a promise to God which I intended to keep and in the fulfillment of the promise to teach my own child the truth convincingly, I rediscovered it myself.

The Holy Father's latest glimpse into the practice of his vocation is actually diagnostic.

These same questions are mandatory when seeking the Sacrament of Marriage to ascertain whether the parties know what they are doing at the time they are doing it.

These are the mandatory questions asked by the priest to determine whether the Sacrament of Marriage would be valid.

If we are to believe the Holy Father's latest 'pastoral' witness, when the uncatechized souls present themselves before him, he thinks the opportunity and process to catechize the soul is, astoundingly, spiritual malpractice. It's as screwed up as it gets. He leaves them in their ignorance and proceeded to perform an invalid Sacrament.

When he sees 'the majority' of Sacramental marriages all around him to be invalid, he need look no further than the mirror for the cause.

What gets to practicing Catholics is, he's trying to institute the perpetuation of simulating the Sacrament of marriage as the pastoral norm.

I pray that never again will we hear reported such a rude and unnecessary remark from this pope or any pope. No human person should be called an animal by a pope or any anyone, for that matter. Metaphors and similes have their place in human discourse, but to univocally call a fellow human being and animal is out of line.

But let’s consider the post hoc assessment of the remark wherein some prefer to say he apparently intended to say that some priests treat children (or possibly their unwed mothers) as “animals.”

Well, count me as less than relieved by this explanation. Again let me note that delaying a baptism merely due to the parents being unwed is rare in my experience (and hence a strawman argument). But it remains highly disrespectful to say that priests who delay baptism (usually for a number of reasons) are treating others as animals and are cruel.

Thus even the “spun” remarks are unhelpful at best and divisive at worst.

Please, Holy Father: Enough of these ad hoc, off-the-cuff, impromptu sessions, whether at thirty thousand feet or at ground level. Much harm through confusion has been caused by these latest remarks on marriage, cohabitation, baptism, confession, and pastoral practice. Simply cleaning the record in the official transcript is not enough; this is an era of instant reportage and lots of recording devices, tweets, and Instagrams.


I have little hope the Holy Father will practice reticence of the constant pounding of heresy and insanity from his papacy and hand-picked lackeys which echo his theology in the public square.

There's something more than sour-pussed belligerence that is delivering diabolical disorientation ad nauseum. I don't think rational sound faithful families, priests, bishops and Cardinals explaining the consequences will have any bearing on slowing him from full-throttle.

Much prayer and fasting!

18 comments:

M. Prodigal said...

How long before Msgr. Pope gets removed and/or silenced?

Anonymous said...

He's no St. Pope John Paul II is he? Sad.

Michael Dowd said...

The man appears to be possessed.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen anything about this on CMTV, so I have to believe everything is OK (now removing tongue from cheek).

Anonymous said...

Dementia more likely.

Anonymous said...

It's one thing to blindly attack the pope for his actual words, it's another thing to attack him for words he never said. He said some treat certain parishioners like animals.

James said...

The pope is a liberal kook. I'm really not surprised at anything he says any more. The resignation of Pope Benedict paved the way for the leftist, dissenting cardinals to maneuver and politick to get the most anti-Benedict person in. But even with that sad episode aside, Pope Francis is the full flowering of Vatican II. A person like Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the type of prelate that The Vatican II Church has turned out. Should we really be that surprised? Priests and bishops say heretical things all the time now, engage in dopey stunts to score points for their respective audiences, and don't even know or care about some of the basics of Catholic doctrine and Catholic culture. Again, should we really be that surprised by the weekly Francis episodes?

John E. said...

Thank you for this post. I feel like I need to join an authentic Catholicism support group. I am very frustrated with this pope and how he is guiding the Church. I am also frustrated with my government. It is almost as if we are living in the last days????? So much confusion and truth becoming lies and lies becoming truth??
Is there a running list somewhere of remarks, actions, and teachings of Pope Francis that are not Catholic teaching. It seems like every week I hear something else. I would like to have a factual list to open the eyes of people who think everything is hunkydory in the Church. Hopefully in a charitable way. Thank You!

Anonymous said...

I miss the days when the question is the pope Catholic was a joke.

TTC said...

"It's one thing to blindly attack the pope for his actual words, it's another thing to attack him for words he never said. He said some treat certain parishioners like animals."

Respectfully, the interview was bumbling and honest, rational and reasonable people who listen to it could receive what he said as calling priests animals.

His revelations are beyond incredulous.

The Bear said...

As an animal, I am offended. People aren't in a crisis of faith because of a Bear. And if the Pope wants to insult someone he should call him a "human." They have always been the real troublemakers. Were Sodom and Gomorra forests full of Bears? No, they were not.

TTC said...

haha Bear!

I never thought of that!

What an insult to animals - lol.

Anonymous said...

@John E google the Denzinger-Bergoglio site, the Denzinger-Bergoglio site takes what Pope Francis says and compares it to historical church teaching.

John E. said...

Thank You !!!!!!

John E. said...

thank you !!!

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if many readers share what I am perceiving lately, but this "modernist" rhetoric by Pope Francis is absolutely trickling down into more and more homilies on the local church level.

This week is just one example at my parish, and we've had plenty over the last few years since Pope Francis became co-Pope.

The priest began his homily talking about a middle easterner who is doing charitable works in Afghanistan. After a lot of confusing language, it was revealed this was a Muslim doing charitable work for other Muslims.

When he "brought it home", the priest then stated that Allah is the same god that Christians worship ("we all believe in the same god, we all worship this one god"). He made a specific statement to the parishioners that Allah is not equal to our God, our Blessed Redeemer, but one in the same.

I asked others after Mass about this and the common theme was "I wasn't listening anyway". I guess one could argue, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it...? I just see this kind of misguidance and disinformation coming from the top. We write to the bishop but what does it get us? I'm from Boston - our archdiocese has lain with leftists for generations.

Anonymous said...

Someone posted about Pope Benedict resigning but is this really the case? A friend was on a Vatican tour where they had framed portraits of former popes. There were two empty frames at the end of the row. Someone asked where Benedict's portrait was, and the group was told by the guide (a Catholic priest based at the Vatican), that this is for FORMER Popes and that Benedict is technically Pope still. Now I was under the impression that as Pope Emeritus he wasn't really "THE" Pope. But he is "A" Pope apparently, one of two. Which implies that perhaps the Vatican believes the prophesy that Francis would be the "last Pope" - but he can't because there are TWO.

I know, belief in the occult within the Catholic Church? Say it ain't so.

Anonymous said...

Manically depressed is more likely, who can only support those who listen and agree with their pain. Hence charity in his mind wouls only come from hierarchs who have their own agenda when humoring Poppe Francis' statements.