How “Pope Francis” is Dealing with the “Leaving Home” Network

The “Leaving Home” network (leaving Roman Catholicism) is much larger than the “Coming Home” network. And this seems to be one of the key things that’s driving the Bergoglio papacy.

There is a very good reason why we see lots of “Coming Home” stories of conversion to Roman Catholicism, but not many the other way. When one person “comes home”, that really is all they can point to. Just one conversion is a big thing. They can’t point to huge numbers traveling in their direction.

A Roman Catholic may make the claim about the Good Shepherd going to find one lost sheep. But that presupposes that there are another 99 already “home”. In this case, the 99 are flooding away in droves.

The other side of that “home to Rome” coin is that there are simply too many conversion stories that are going the other way. Too many to report. Too many people are leaving.

When someone becomes Roman Catholic, it is just a big event for them. When a Roman Catholic leaves and becomes Protestant, well, that sort of thing happens all the time. Pew Research has recently reported that among US Roman Catholics:

What are we supposed to think about the Roman Catholic Church?

I haven’t commented much about Roman Catholicism lately, although that has always been the primary thing that I have written about. There is a saying attributed to Napoleon that I find useful at times like these: “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.

The official Roman Catholic Church has been making a number of them … the “official” “Church” being heavily constituted by that hierarchy which, according to Vatican II, is integral to “the Church that Christ Founded”:

Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body [emphasis added].

In other words, “the ”visible hierarchy” is to the Roman Catholic Church what Christ’s flesh was to the person of Christ”: a strong analogy to the flesh, the “assumed nature”, of “the divine Word”. In the same way, this “visible hierarchy” is (IS!) “vivified” by the Spirit of Christ.

There is no way any Protestant apologist could do more damage to Rome, than Rome is inflicting on itself these days.

“Pope Francis” vs “Pope John Paul II”: Opposing “Veritatis Splendor”

The Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister has fretted now that the dismissal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller was really “an attack on ‘Veritatis Splendor’”, which he called “the most important doctrinal encyclical” of “Pope John Paul II”, and further, that this “attack” was accompanied by an affirmation of this encyclical, “by fate or divine providence” in “all the Catholic churches of the Roman rite” in the regularly scheduled prayers in last Sunday’s Mass:

“O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord...

The first line of that encyclical re-states the Roman Catholic distinction vs Protestantism:

Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9), people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" (Eph 5:8), and are made holy by "obedience to the truth" (1 Pet 1:22).

“Obedience” makes people “holy”. This precisely mirrors the error that Augustine made, which led to the medieval misunderstanding of justification, which in turn was contested by Luther and the Reformers. The Council of Trent later codified the error as “infallible dogma”.

But there is a second error espoused by “Pope Francis” and “Amoris Laetitia”, and it was articulated by Joseph Ratzinger. Pope Ratzinger, who had been Prefect of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (CDF) prior to Müller, and who “contributed in a substantial way to the writing of that encyclical”, had this to say about it in a recent chapter in “a book in honor of John Paul II”:

“Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious”

Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious

Some folks got a kick out of referring to Karol Wojtyla as “Pope John Paul the Great”, as if a few journalistic designations could help to fix a historical understanding. What we’re beginning to see now are the various shapes of the long term effects of “Pope Bergoglio the Tenacious”. He knows he’s making significant changes, effectively undoing things that Pope Wojtlya put into place, and he is consciously acting in such ways as to assure that his mark will be felt far into the future.

Aside from being the pope who has upset the traditional sacramental apple cart, diminishing the once-unique role of “the eucharist” in the Roman Catholic Church by enabling “communion for those who are divorced and remarried without benefit of annulment” in the footnotes of his document, “Amoris Laetitia”, it is becoming clearer that Pope Bergoglio wants to leave his mark in other tangible ways as well:

[“Pope Francis”] has no desire to go down in history as a “transitional” pope. That which he is doing, he wants it to survive his departure. And to make sure of this he is institutionalizing the things dearest to him, he is making them stable, with all the numbers to keep moving forward on their own.

To that end, he is not only stacking the deck of Cardinals who can vote for a like-minded “successor”, but he is also coming up with new “traditions” that future popes will find difficult to stop.

According to the Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister, these include:

Pope Wrecking Ball: Will He Win?

Pope Wrecking-Ball

Roman Catholicism is nothing if not a very self-serving system, designed to perpetuate itself. The pope names the Cardinals, the Cardinals are appointed from among the bishops, the popes name the bishops.

Now Rome has accidentally elected a very self-serving pope who is not “on the farm” with respect to “the mind of the Church”. He wants to change things. Relax some stringent rules. Loosen up the reins. Let some of the wanderers, frankly, to wander.

A couple of days ago, I posted an article that discussed “the papal horse race” – noting that Pope Bergoglio was on a mission to assure that his “successor” would be a like-minded one. Such a development would, as the traditionalist website Rorate Caeli has feared, take centuries to undo.

But being among “the faithful” who believe that the Holy Spirit will infallibly guide the Roman Catholic Church into all truth (and never permit it to “teach” a heretical dogma – by the setup of their system they get to say after the fact what is and what isn’t “heretical dogma”) – it is in that spirit, with that understanding, that Sandro Magister has published this article, “A Very Popular Pope, But Not Among the Bishops”.

That is, Bergoglio is in a race against time vis-à-vis the Cardinals, but he can’t make as big a dent in the bishops as he’d like. Or so it seems. Here is the article without further comment:

Pope Bergoglio Pulls On Thread; “Seamless Garment” Falls Apart

Bergoglio-appointed Bishop
Robert McElroy of San Diego
openly permits divorced-and
civilly-remarried-Roman Catholics
to take communion

Here’s a headline that caught my eye this morning:

New Appeal to the Pope. The Catholic Doubts of
“The New York Times”

by Sandro Magister

Then the first paragraph sent off some warning signs:

In California the bishop of San Diego, a favorite of Bergoglio, admits de facto divorces and remarriages, as in any Protestant church. From the news arises the question: Can “Amoris Laetitia” be interpreted this way, too?

It turns out that “the news” in this first paragraph (Magister’s “first paragraphs” are always summaries of his articles) is the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a “Catholic Convert” along the lines of Richard John Neuhaus of First Things, who is “mostly convinced that Roman Catholicism is the expression of Christianity that has kept faith most fully with the early church and the words of Jesus of Nazareth himself”. These are folks claim to know more than popes and bishops together, as has been noted elsewhere. So he is able to compartmentalize history somewhere, and forget it and then ignore that he has forgotten it. But anyway….

More Official Confusion Over “Amoris Laetitia”

I wrote last week about Confusion at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church over the “interpretation” of the recent “Pope Francis” document “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”). That confusion is continuing now after a couple of recent milestones: the naming of some new Cardinals by the pope, and a meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where, contrary to the papal promotions, the US Bishops named some of the more conservative bishops to leadership positions.

This week featured a spat between the newly named Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, a former bishop of Dallas, and now prefect of the newly established Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia.

Not one word has come from the mouth of Pope Francis after four cardinals publicly asked him to resolve five major “doubts” raised by the most controversial passages of “Amoris Laetitia":

Or better, the pope has given a non-answer, when in the interview with Stefania Falasca for the November 18 edition of "Avvenire" he said at a certain point, using the familiar “tu” form of address with the interviewer, a longstanding friend of his:

“Some - think of certain replies to ‘Amoris Laetitia’ - still fail to understand, it’s either black or white, even though it is in the flux of life that one must discern.”

To make up for this, not a few churchmen of the pope’s circle have come forward to speak for him, falling over themselves to say that the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” is already perfectly clear in itself and cannot give rise to doubts, and therefore those who are raising them are in reality attacking the pope and disobeying his magisterium.

The Teaching of “Pope Francis”: “Typical of a Jesuit”

Yes, No, I Don’t Know, You Figure It Out. The Fluid Magisterium of Pope Francis

This is worth quoting in its entirety. Bold emphasis added:

He never says all that he has in mind, he just leaves it to guesswork. He allows everything to be brought up again for discussion. Thus everything becomes a matter of opinion, in a Church where everyone does what he wants

by Sandro Magister

ROME, May 13, 2016 – How the magisterium of Pope Francis works was explained a few days ago by one of his pupils, Archbishop Bruno Forte. He recounted that during the synod on the family, for which he was special secretary, the pope said to him:

New: a “correct interpretation” of the papal “interpretation” of the synod, “Amoris Lætitia”

Roman apologists used to boast to us that a papal interpretation was necessary to provide “a principled means of distinguishing ‘the deposit of faith’ from that which is ‘mere human opinion’”.

Now, thanks to “Pope Francis”, that hermeneutic has been turned on its head, as Roman Catholics at all levels need an “interpretation” of the papal “interpretation”.

Instructions For Not Losing the Way in the Labyrinth of “Amoris Lætitia”:

“One month after the publication of the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Lætitia” it is ever more evident that in interpreting and applying it there is growing “uncertainty and confusion, from the bishops' conferences to the small parishes in the middle of nowhere,” in the forceful criticism of the eminent German philosopher Robert Spaemann, a peer and longstanding friend of Joseph Ratzinger.”

What is “Pope Francis” up to? He is “decentralizing” the papacy

“Surprise!! I’m Decentralizing the Papacy!”

Here are portions of a Google translation of a speech that “Pope Francis” gave at the recent “Synod on the Family”, published only in Italian. This version is taken from the Italian version of the “La Chiesa” site by Sandro Magister; Magister has carried this theme in the past.

This is the “keynote speech” of “Pope Francis” that has not yet been translated into English. Why don’t they translate it and publish it for all the world to see? One can only surmise that they don’t feel as if this will be a message that will be well-received by some. But the Google Translate version here can give you some idea of the substance of this speech, and why this theme has got “traditionalist” Roman Catholics in such an uproar:

Primacy of the pope and decentralization. The theorem of Francis. This, first of all, is Magister’s introduction:

“Dismantle the Papacy”? “Pope Francis” may be an ally in this effort

I would see this as a positive, though incomplete, “development”.

With the current pope, the “school of Bologna” is convinced that it has a clear road ahead:

The leaders of the “school of Bologna” have a very ambitious new project in the works: a history of the movement for Christian unity aimed at a thorough reform of the Catholic Church, starting with the dismantling of the papacy in its current form. They believe they have an ally in Pope Francis….

ROME, November 3, 2014 – At the end of October, Pope Francis received a delegation of Old Catholic bishops of the Union of Utrecht.

Numerically this is a very small group, but it is the bearer of a model of Church that pleases not a few progressive Catholics. It recognizes a primacy of honor for the pope, but it does not accept that he is infallible or has jurisdiction over the bishops. It has its bishops elected by a synod composed of clergy and laity. At Mass it gives Eucharistic communion to all, as long as they are baptized in one of the various Christian confessions. It administers collective absolution of sins. It allows second marriages for the divorced.

It also advocates a return to the early faith and recognizes as fully ecumenical only the first seven councils, those of the first millennium, when the Churches of West and East were still undivided….

They couldn’t dismantle it enough for my liking.

First, note that these are “Old Catholics” – those who refused to accept “papal infallibility” at Vatican I. I don’t think there should be a “primacy of honor” – not one that was acquired so dishonestly.

Second, my hopes for this type of dismantling, and the hopes of “not a few progressive Catholics”, would be quite different. They would see it as “license”, whereas I would hope to see it as an admission on the part of Rome that it had overstated its own importance and had thus harmed Christianity for centuries.

Third, I would want to see an actual repentance from the papacy of itself.

And of course, as I’ve written, it is a myth that “the Church” was “undivided” in the first 1000 years.

One of the most significant, Protestant-like “divisions” in the early church may be found in the simple designations of "The School of Antioch" or "The School of Alexandria," both of which held differing views of Scripture, and later, of the person of Christ. This manifested itself in “The Great Schism,” a schism of church governments of “The Church of the East,” the separation of the Church of Alexandria, etc.

Samuel Hugh Moffett, in his work, "A History of Christianity in Asia," describes this "Great Schism" this way:

What finally divided the early church, East from West, Asia from Europe, was neither war nor persecution, but the blight of a violent theological controversy, that raged through the Mediterranean world in the second quarter of the fifth century. It came to be called the Nestorian controversy, and how much of it was theological and how much political is still being debated, but it irreversibly split the church not only east and west but also north and south and cracked it into so many pieces that it was never the same again. (pg. 169)

This is an ugly memory for the “Greco-Roman” church -- it is a far larger and messier divide than the 1054 schism between the Roman and Orthodox churches. It makes a lie of the “unified church” claims of today's Roman Catholic apologists. It is the clearest example that there never was a governmentally-unified church -- especially not “under the papacy” -- ever in the history of the church.

See also A History of the Interpretation of Matt 16:18.

Bergoglio’s Gig: Shuffling the Deck

Shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic? 

The Bergoglio-inspired decentralization at the Vatican is occurring at a far more rapid pace than anyone ever would have predicted. The Vatican-based journalist Sandro Magister is reporting “tremors in the Congregation for Catholic education, from which Pope Francis has removed nine cardinals.”

The “Congregation for Catholic Education” has the following functions:

The Congregation for Catholic Education (in Seminaries and Institutes of Study) is the Pontifical congregation of the Roman Curia responsible for: (1) houses of formation of religious and secular institutes; (2) universities, faculties, institutes and higher schools of study, either ecclesial or civil dependent on ecclesial persons; and (3) schools and educational institutes depending on ecclesiastical authorities. Until Friday, January 25, 2013, it was in charge of regulating seminaries, which prepare those students intending to become priests (seminarians) for ordination to the presbyterate. However, that day, Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio (done on his own initiative), in which oversight of seminaries- and all other related formation programs for clergy (priests and deacons)- are to be transferred from the Congregation for Catholic Education to the Congregation for the Clergy, which regulates already-ordained deacons and priests. The Congregation for Catholic Education will still regulate other education for clergy and religious not relating to ordination or done after it, and it will still regulate non-seminary programs of study and have administrative oversight of pontifical universities, faculties, and institutes (even if some of these institutions are now involved in priestly formation), and oversight of Catholic education in general religious education programs. It already works closely with the Clergy Congregation.

What does this mean?

Bergoglio’s Gig: De-centralize

Why did the Vatican remove the pope’s document? 

It used to be said that “all roads lead to Rome”. But it seems as if Bishop of Rome Bergoglio is working to turn that flow in the other direction. The Italian journalist Sandro Magister captures the key distinctives of the recent “Apostolic Exhortation” of “Pope Francis”, entitled “Evangelii Gaudium”, and that appears precisely to be this pope’s program.

According to Magister, these distinctives offer: “More autonomy for the national episcopal conferences. And more room for different cultures. The two points on which ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ most distinguishes itself from the magisterium of the previous popes”.

[By the way, some of you may have noticed that The original file has been removed from the Vatican website and replaced with the graphic nearby, leaving only the difficult-to-navigate .pdf file available. I don’t know why they did this, but fortunately, I have saved the original .html document and republished a .pdf version of it here. All the links seem to be intact.]

(JB note: Interestingly, the original article seems to have re-appeared. It would be interesting to compare the two versions to see what edits the Vatican made.)

Magister seems to have gotten to the heart of what Bergoglio is trying to accomplish.