tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post6298658130830982899..comments2024-01-09T15:49:37.273-05:00Comments on THE TENTH CRUSADE: Feetgate: Pope Francis Witnesses His Disobedience to Church LawTTChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-58344779523017917352013-04-01T10:09:59.358-04:002013-04-01T10:09:59.358-04:00That the best you've got?
Came up empty on t...That the best you've got? <br /><br />Came up empty on the enlightenment of what I would ever be "running scared" about. <br /><br />Come back and visit us soon. There is going to be a link on my sidebar of dangerous priests, programs, schools in Boston for butterballino and company. I think you will enjoy.<br /> TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-41756868017940993262013-04-01T09:40:25.321-04:002013-04-01T09:40:25.321-04:00keep LOL girl keep LOL girl Consolaminihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09278560268489520757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-62153187414614121952013-04-01T07:59:56.909-04:002013-04-01T07:59:56.909-04:00Yeah. That must be it, I'm scared of a bunch ...Yeah. That must be it, I'm scared of a bunch of old ladies and sissified men. <br /><br />April fools. I think you are confusing me with the wimps in the chancery. <br /><br />You must be new around these parts. Better check out the archives. Run a search on fornication Liturgies and/or Fr. Unni and check out this fraidycat. LOL<br /><br />Just for giggles, what is it you think I'm scared of? <br /><br />I know the teachings of the Church. I know where the priests are who teach them. I know where the Sacraments of Confession and Eucharist are every day and I have Christ's promise that I'll have it until He calls me home or returns. No plot of the golden girls can rob me of everything I hold dear.<br /><br />I'm not even sure what victory you claim, other than a Pope who won't genuflect to Christ. <br /><br />So far, every newspaper carries the image of man kissing and hugging everyone in St Peter's Square above the deafening silence of the sycophants who painted priests as perverts. Bertone and his empire of Caligula and financial corruption that left a man hanging by his neck on a bridge have pink slips. The Pope won't live with them. Who would.<br /><br />He says he wants to rebuild the structure that fomented the culture of arrogance and corruption and wants better means of communication. Unless you are a sorcerer, you don't know anything more than I do about exactly what he has in mind. We are about to find out though, because we are firing up our engines to send the paper trail of the dirty dozen here in Boston. Calling in our chits to find out if the homoeroticism of our children is going to remain fortified in Rome or meet its end.<br /><br />But even if his intentions are to build an empire that defiles what is holy, you can take this to the bank, Nebachudessar, we shall decline to follow orders that rob us of salvation and will gladly enter a furnace with the lions he prepares to devour us at every parish in the nation. <br /><br />Good day to you Madam.<br /> TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-85474055910486859962013-04-01T07:22:42.217-04:002013-04-01T07:22:42.217-04:00For anon March 31st at 11:45:
This is from the Va...For anon March 31st at 11:45:<br /><br />This is from the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium (and the Sacred Liturgy).<br />-----------------------------------<br /><br />A) General norms <br /><br />22. 1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop. <br /><br />2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.<br /><br />3. Therefore *no other person*, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.<br /><br />-----------------------------------<br /><br />Anon, one does *not* see this statement in said paragraph: "The Law is whatever the Pope “decrees” that it is."<br /><br />God bless,<br />CKCatechist Kevnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-10285885974790072132013-04-01T02:15:09.277-04:002013-04-01T02:15:09.277-04:00Keep lOL girl, cause as long as you do, I know tha...Keep lOL girl, cause as long as you do, I know that you are running scared of what the electio of Pope Francis portends Consolaminihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09278560268489520757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-49365450060631491802013-04-01T00:38:41.168-04:002013-04-01T00:38:41.168-04:00Anon, not sure your thesis gels with Church law......Anon, not sure your thesis gels with Church law...TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-20568208548178193662013-04-01T00:37:16.597-04:002013-04-01T00:37:16.597-04:00Consolimini,
Vulgar, profanity and narcissism doe...Consolimini,<br /><br />Vulgar, profanity and narcissism does not irritate. It disgusts. But seeing you clinging to it from the nursing home is definitely a LOL.<br /><br />What you don't realize is, the Pontificate of John Paul II, whom I absolute adore, was actually a disaster Liturgically. You are a decade late and a dollar short.<br /><br />We have already been through this dog and pony show in Boston and we know exactly how to send the rats back into the corner. Most of them went through a conversion in ghouls were outside the Church doors calling them peodophiles. The rest we drove underground by exposing and publishing their antics. Placing moles in all the right places and letting their legacy reach the entire populous on the Internet. <br /><br />Priests are wimps and all we have to do is give them a good dose of putting their foolishness up on a blog and YouTube, jam their email boxes with complaints. Even their pride can be forced to bend the knee and serve God.<br /><br />I doubt you have seen the inside of a Church for decades or you would know this, but I enjoy recounting it for you.<br /><br />We made a big poopoo out of this pope's disobedience. Hopefully he has received the message. Just in case he has t, he has not heard the end of it yet. Being a pastoral man, I doubt very much he will continue to scandalize faithful Catholics. He knows we are the ones who give him future priests. Fill his pews.<br /><br />Just in case he hasn't received the message, we are going to shoot more flares across his bow. Light up the Roman sky. <br /><br />We shall just have to see what happens s when the dust settles there. But here in our parishes, we know exactly how to keep the priests in tow.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-57330875243517250972013-03-31T23:45:59.493-04:002013-03-31T23:45:59.493-04:00If one knows one’s history one knows that Pope Fra...If one knows one’s history one knows that Pope Francis did not break Church Law when he—as Pope—included women in the ritual washing of the feet on Holy Thursday. In our Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, as in most modern legal systems, the lawgiver is himself (or in the case of legislative governments, themselves) subject to the Law. Thus in the United States, the President, the members of both houses of the Congress, and the Judiciary are subject to the law, though the legislature can change the law and the courts can decided its legitimacy in terms of its constitutionality. But until such change is made or such ruling is given, the government is subject to the Law as it is codified. Similarly in England the Monarch, the Members of Parliament—both Lords and Commons—and the Judiciary are subject to the Law. This was a long hard process of constitutional development for until the English Civil War one could say that the Monarch, as Lawgiver, was not subject to the Law but rather was the Law. What the Monarch decreed was Law. The same would be true for other medieval and early-modern monarchies but as constitutional forms emerged from absolutism, governments eventually became subject the laws they made. That evolution has never happened in the Church, however. The Law is whatever the Pope “decrees” that it is. And I use the word “decree” in the loosest terms; it does not take a formal declaration. The Pope can change canon law (including liturgical laws) at whim. Moreover, he doesn’t have to do it formally. Whatever he does, is the Law because the Pope himself embodies the Law much as medieval monarchs in England or the great Sun-King, Louis XIV in France or other monarchs. By washing the feet of two young women during the Holy Thursday service, Pope Francis effectively decreed that it is totally permissible for women to be included in this rite. Now it is in the prerogative of a local ordinary to set policies otherwise for his diocese though I imagine few, if any, will do so for fear of “blotting their copybooks” with the current Papal regime. And of course, unless the local bishop decides otherwise, pastors or priest-celebrants of the Holy Thursday Mass can opt to include only men. Of course, unless the local ordinary decrees otherwise, they would also be free to include only women, though that would be rather silly. Part of being Catholic is that we live in an absolute monarchy, at least as the Church is structured at this point in time. Sometimes that works for us; sometimes against. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-60210075110480399112013-03-31T23:41:07.986-04:002013-03-31T23:41:07.986-04:00TTC, sorry to rob you of your consolation, but I h...TTC, sorry to rob you of your consolation, but I have lived to see my dream—in the election of Pope Francis people will know the kraziness of the ecclesial neo-cons comes not from the Church but from this supposedly “solid” clergy or which they are so proud with their pharisaical rigidity, their pomposity masquerading as piety, and their false gospel of judgment rather than mercy. I rejoice that Pope Francis has already given us in his example a simpler more robust Catholicism lacking the effete patina of a backward looking restoration of a baroque era to an evangelical future. <br />Oh—and by the way—I have learned from blogs like yours and that krazy lady from Woodstock that when I see LOL it means that you are not laughing at all, but are really irritated –so LOL all you want, girl. Luke 6:25b <br />Consolaminihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09278560268489520757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-7958484760002968562013-03-31T20:26:43.886-04:002013-03-31T20:26:43.886-04:00Joseph, I'll ask you once again to stop postin...<br />Joseph, I'll ask you once again to stop posting your blasphemous comments on my blog. <br /><br />It's my blog and forcing me to put on comment moderation or babysit my own comments section is manipulative. I have asked you dozens of times to stop. Please stop. You are in a condition that I wish no reader of mine to ever be in - and therefore I do not wish to host your comments on my watch.<br /><br />You've been doing this now for years and I have had enough. TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-75693060300222393202013-03-31T13:12:24.689-04:002013-03-31T13:12:24.689-04:00Very interesting. I do have and refer to, pray so...Very interesting. I do have and refer to, pray some of the prayers in the Pieta but that one, being refuted by the Catechism, I can't spread as a teaching of the Church. I think there may be a great many souls called to this kind of spirituality, just like there are those who would prefer to run to a Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Though I am devoted to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy (and I hope all of you are doing the Novena!), there are many priests teaching immorality and doing great damage to children, families souls. To be silent in the face of that is a great injustice to the victims. But not everyone is called to defend victims against their errors.<br /><br />I haven't used that book for a while, but there was at least one other prayer I thought was a little off of the reservation. Maybe my memory is not serving me well but I find for the past ten years, it sits more in the drawer than placed within my reach.<br /><br />You ask a good question about an oratory, which I will have to let my very wise readers teach us as I do not know myself!TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-17044763159737063112013-03-31T12:55:20.404-04:002013-03-31T12:55:20.404-04:00Re: Mutter Vogl
After reading about St. Philip ...Re: Mutter Vogl<br /><br /><br /><br />After reading about St. Philip Neri I'm curious. How does an oratory work? Is it treated like a parish or a monastery?<br /><br />* If you've ever read the Pieta prayer book you've probably seen excerpts from Mutter Vogel's Worldwide Love. Mother Vogel was a German woman who had many visits from Our Lord and Our Lady. Our Lord supposedly told her many things but the oft quoted words in the Pieta prayer book concerned criticism of priests. A number of people on various blogs have claimed that there's no evidence that Mutter Vogel existed.<br /><br />I'm a librarian. Looking for stuff is my business so I went searching for Mother Vogel's book for myself. Google is great and I love it but it's not the end of online research by a long shot. After checking WorldCat, the Library of Congress, German Amazon, German books on mystics and a few German blogs I discovered that the Pieta editors spelled Mutter Vogel's name wrong. It's actually Vogl and the book doesn't seem to have been published in English. I then looked for Mutter Vogls weltweite Liebe and learned that her name was Katharina and she was a Franciscan Third Order member. She did not publish the book herself but seems to have reported the details of her visions only to her superior(s). Someone named A. M. Weigl wrote the book so anyone searching for Vogel as the author wouldn't have found a thing. Katharina Vogl died in 1956, and her cause for beatification has been opened.<br />Posted by Dymphna at 3:57 PM 6 comments:<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-55055686729924209482013-03-31T10:10:28.465-04:002013-03-31T10:10:28.465-04:00n.b. - I am sorry - but I don't know who mutte...n.b. - I am sorry - but I don't know who mutter vogel is,but if Christ called her to a personal avocation never to seek justice and truth and evangelize when priests are victimizing people, that is her personal calling.<br /><br />I won't let her own calling be used to imply that Catholics need to follow her advice because it runs contrary to the laws and teachings proscribed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-87320013276381952702013-03-31T10:01:15.295-04:002013-03-31T10:01:15.295-04:00Allelluia, my dear friend Kevin and all readers of...Allelluia, my dear friend Kevin and all readers of TTC blog!<br /><br />This priest's concerns really captures it. <br /><br />On the face value of his witness, there are so many things wrong theologically, it is hard to put them into perspectivce succinctly. I think I'm going to work on enumerating them succinctly. <br /><br />Furthermore, Fr. Cantalemessa's homily on Good Friday - again - perhaps poor syntax - seems to indicate the Supreme Pontiff sees are Liturgies, Rituals and Laws as rubbish that are obstacles to salvation - and must become a thing of the 'past'. <br /><br />n.b. When a commenter on Fr. Z's mentioned his understanding of Fr. Cantalmessa's homily similar to what I've said above and said 'perhaps I misunderstand', Fr. Z said "I don't think you do".<br /><br />Fr. Z has hardly been a hysteric. In fact, in my opinion, he has on more than one occasion, in charity, remained silent or tried to put things into the perspective of misunderstanding when it was clear it was time to acknowledge a bishop or person was not acting in good faith.<br /><br />I want to be clear and state once again that I will never leave the Mystical Body of Christ. Priests for at least the last ten years are solid and there are and will continue to be many refuges which even the witness of a disobedient Pope will not defile.<br /><br />We have seen this show in Boston under Cardinal O'Malley. Sophomoric theology and disordered understanding of 'love' leads to appoinments of apostates to catechize --- and ultimately demoralize children while he travels to pot luck suppers to collect the admiration of teaching apostasy in gratitude.<br /><br />Of course, righteous people will never watch the faithful be defiled in silence, and he is miserable that practicing Catholics, though cordial, distance themselves and have no respect for him. We are simply riding out the storm wondering what will be left after a few decades of the disaster. Always confident in Christ's promises and seeking refuges that we know are there and will continue to be there.<br /><br />Love to al.<br /><br />TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-18986560440770129082013-03-31T08:00:55.240-04:002013-03-31T08:00:55.240-04:00Happy Easter, Carol! (He is risen!)
Found another...Happy Easter, Carol! (He is risen!)<br /><br />Found another over at Fr. Zs which emphasizes what I sent you privately on Thursday afternoon:<br /><br />frjamesomaha says:<br /> <br />29 March 2013 at 8:59 am <br /><br />As a priest, I can tell you last night I was sitting with another priest talking about this. I am what many call a Neo-Con, Reform-of-the-Reform type. He is for the most part orthodox but slightly more “open” to some “options”. Anyway, I brought it up, and simply said, “What does this say to us priests about following liturgical law?” He said, “It says we don’t have to.” That in a nutshell is the problem with what Pope Francis did yesterday. He has paved the way for wacko experimental priests to bring in clowns and balloons to liturgy again. And then to use a folk guitar group of musicians? Are we going back to St. Louis Jesuit music? Is he going to dismantle the organs in St. Peters and put in pianos? <br /><br />I know all of this sounds pretty ridiculous, but hear me out. It’s the same argument I have against same-sex marriage (besides the theological one): where does it stop? If we allow gay marriage, then pretty soon they’ll be petitioning for man/animal marriage, and marriage between siblings, and marriage between adults and children….WHERE DOES IT END?<br /><br />In the same way with liturgical abuse, where will it end with him? Washing MUSLIM womens feet? How about offering them communion? I mean, you don’t want them to feel left out – you want them to FEEL welcomed. Well, how about having a Rabbi concelebrate with you? After all, we’ve pretty much plagarized their Passover meal and turned it into the Mass, so they might be offended and talk bad about us. <br /><br />I had so much hope when I saw him bowing before his people asking them to pray for him. I had so much hope when he went to pay his hotel bill. I started losing hope when he refused to live in the Papal apartment and chose to live in a hotel. I now find myself in spiritual despair now that he has broken the law. I wondered last night as I was falling asleep what Pope Emeritus Benedict thinks about all this. Cardinal Burke? Humility is one thing – making the papacy look cheap and above the law is another. God help the Church!<br /><br />Catechist Kevnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-85599303772609385952013-03-31T07:06:01.120-04:002013-03-31T07:06:01.120-04:00Janet - what a hoot.Janet - what a hoot.TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-69674665878668946472013-03-31T07:05:43.058-04:002013-03-31T07:05:43.058-04:00Joseph, I don't understand why you do not have...Joseph, I don't understand why you do not have the respect for me and the religion of people who read here to do as I ask and stop posting your asked you to please stop posting comments on my blog. You exhausted patience and charity when you came out of the closet years ago to declare the Catholic Church as the whore of babylon and posting blasphemous commentary.<br /><br />No matter how many times I ask you to stop posting your gross misunderstanding, it seems you will not havve the respect for me, even as a woman or human being to stop. <br /><br />I stopped reading the piece as soon as I saw the individual reaching back to the Catechism of Trent. Nothing about the teaching on capital punishment changed in the new Catechism. <br /><br />Even if it did, to the best of my knowledge that teaching has not been declared infallible and is therefore subject to refinement by the Supreme Pontiff. The proper channel for a refinement to Church teaching is to make those changes in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. <br /><br />Once a teaching is refined through a Catechism or Church law, Christ Himself binds to the refinement of that teaching and law and consequently, Catholics bind themselves to it. <br /><br />Sede vacanists or those like yourself who struggle with the concept that your own intellect - that is to say human intellect - is limited and that is why Christ put this protocol into place,proceed to enlighten themselves. <br /><br />Practing Catholics forbear lay their intellect at the foot of the cross in exchange for obedience, to honor the Church Christ sacrificed His Life to leave us.<br /><br />What practicing Catholics are watching now, is a Supreme Pontiff who puts his own intellect and personal tastes above that of the Deposit of Faith. The dangers and witness could mean a lot of things. <br /><br />In charity and hope, we give him the benefit of the doubt that he is struggline with his role as Supreme Pontiff and this is a learning curve. <br /><br />The jury is out.TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-10298012976038095902013-03-31T04:10:12.120-04:002013-03-31T04:10:12.120-04:00Pope John Paul never strayed from Church teaching ...<i>Pope John Paul never strayed from Church teaching on Capital punishment., despite the urban legends of sophomoric converts and the village cranks.</i><br /><br />Carol, you're dead wrong:<br /><br />http://www.seattlecatholic.com/article_20040406.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-48230149827754915662013-03-30T22:04:33.738-04:002013-03-30T22:04:33.738-04:00Carol, I got the "new sheriff" comment o...Carol, I got the "new sheriff" comment on my post about 2 minutes after yours appeared. Someone's been "making the rounds"!Restore-DC-Catholicismhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17478857915379063106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-61997102878189991332013-03-30T21:36:51.396-04:002013-03-30T21:36:51.396-04:00Excellent comments at Fr. Z's here:
http://wd...<br /><br /><br />Excellent comments at Fr. Z's here:<br /><br />http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/03/have-we-entered-an-age-of-a-new-gnosticism/<br /><br /><br /><br />Below resonates with all of us:<br /><br />"When your loyalty is so strong that you will bend over backwards to justify anything that a Pope does solely out of completely blind love, you’ve got a wee bit too far.<br /> <br />We have to walk a very fine line where we affirm dogmatic teachings, maintain obedience and respect, but still notice and still voice when a Pope, who can and does sin and can be in error privately, starts making wholesale changes to ecclesiastical tradition and violates canon law. It was so bad with many folks that it seemed almost as though the deference that was needed in this situation was a simple laughing-off of the notion that a Supreme Pontiff could be bound by canon law. While this is technically true, it’s a complete cop-out, since it’s being used as a shield to avoid the question of whether the Roman Pontiff is acting outside of propriety and encouraging Liturgical abuse and scandal by implicitly invoking his power as supreme interpreter of canon law and exploiting the fact that he has no authority over him except the Holy Trinity when it comes to matters of governance and law.<br /> <br />May our Father bless Pope Francis. I pray that he is guided in the Spirit and that the Mother of God shelters him in a special way, as He acts as Vicar of Christ. I bend the knee… but I do not defend his actions"<br /><br />TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-13359075791879076202013-03-30T17:11:15.024-04:002013-03-30T17:11:15.024-04:00BTW, we are indeed subjects of the Magisterium, tr...BTW, we are indeed subjects of the Magisterium, trusting in Christ.TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-18311817128236234992013-03-30T17:09:14.302-04:002013-03-30T17:09:14.302-04:00Pope John Paul never strayed from Church teaching ...Pope John Paul never strayed from Church teaching on Capital punishment., despite the urban legends of sophomoric converts and the village cranks. The Liturgies were out in left field and that, along with the chaos of the lack of discipline definitely drove young Catholic families out of parishes.<br /><br /> TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-77680908366880696382013-03-30T17:00:56.111-04:002013-03-30T17:00:56.111-04:00Consolomini, the twenty two year pontificate was ...Consolomini, the twenty two year pontificate was filled with outreach, joy and love. Though a quieter man, so wasn't Pope Benediict's, so you are being intellectually dishonest..<br /><br />It brings me great consolation to know that you will not live to see what you seek. TTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738875888053745269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-79689460380891502682013-03-30T15:37:56.651-04:002013-03-30T15:37:56.651-04:00Of course, there's the widespread disregard fo...Of course, there's the widespread disregard for Canon Law (cf, 915 and Cardinal Wuerl) that has been SOP for...how long now?<br /><br />Why <i>should</i> we expect anything different from whoever succeeded Benedict?<br /><br />Catholics have been double-minded for far too long. I don't mean that in the Biblical sense. I mean it in the sense that they will attempt to ignore or explain away <i>anything</i> that a Pope or archbishop does. It's just like Hans Christian Andersen's story of the emperor with no clothes. His subjects praised the "finery" because 1)he was the emperor and 2)he and they were guided by "experts." Only the little boy told the truth, and he was ignored.<br /><br />It's about time that Catholics stop acting like the emperor's "subjects" and start looking at things as they are for themselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015949969530867456.post-89124008484269132992013-03-30T15:32:30.292-04:002013-03-30T15:32:30.292-04:00You know, nobody in right mind expects Pope Franci...You know, nobody in right mind expects Pope Francis or approve same-sex marriage or abortion or even the ordination of women. We aren’t look for a change in substance. We are simply looking for a change in approach, of style. At the opening session of Vatican II, Bishop deSmedt of Bruges criticized the Church of his day for the triple faults (I believe he said “sins”) of triumphalism, legalism, and clericalism. For those of us of a certain age—and too old for Woodstock despite the claims—the fresh air of Pope John’s open windows were a breath of Life that gave new levels of intensity to our age-old Catholic Faith. We came to see our faith not as a static and ironbound set of laws and dogmas, but as a living relationship with God in Jesus Christ through His Gospel. The last twenty years have marked a long slow slide back into the swamps of a stilted and dead “faith” marked by shallow pomposity in worship, a pharisaical rigidity in practice, and a younger clergy who were more fixed on their status than eager for service. I wish I could say that I am sorry for y’all for whom the election of Pope Francis marks a loss of the restoration of a pre-conciliar Catholicism, but just as we suffered the loss of the promise of Vatican II over the past several decades but stayed faithful none the less, so now it is your turn to let go of your hopes for the Church and simply accept the direction the Chief Shepherd takes us in. Good Journey to you. Consolaminihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09278560268489520757noreply@blogger.com