We can always depend upon our Pope to disappoint. He uses the Feast of Epiphany to lash out at traditional Catholics:
“Longing for God draws us out of our iron-clad isolation, which makes us think that nothing can change. Longing for God shatters our dreary routines and impels us to make the changes we want and need. Longing for God has its roots in the past yet does not remain there: it reaches out to the future. Believers who feel this longing are led by faith to seek God, as the Magi did, in the most distant corners of history, for they know that there the Lord awaits them. They go to the peripheries, to the frontiers, to places not yet evangelized, to encounter their Lord. Nor do they do this out of a sense of superiority, but rather as beggars who cannot ignore the eyes of those who for whom the Good News is still uncharted territory.
“An entirely different attitude reigned in the palace of Herod, a short distance from Bethlehem, where no one realized what was taking place. As the Magi made their way, Jerusalem slept. It slept in collusion with a Herod who, rather than seeking, also slept. He slept, anesthetized by a cauterized conscience. He was bewildered, afraid. It is the bewilderment which, when faced with the newness that revolutionizes history, closes in on itself and its own achievements, its knowledge, its successes. The bewilderment of one who sits atop his wealth yet cannot see beyond it. The bewilderment lodged in the hearts of those who want to control everything and everyone. The bewilderment of those immersed in the culture of winning at any cost, in that culture where there is only room for “winners”, whatever the price. A bewilderment born of fear and foreboding before anything that challenges us, calls into question our certainties and our truths, our ways of clinging to the world and this life.
Go here to read the rest. Christ told us what His followers could expect in this world. Being insulted by a bad Pope is small potatoes all things considered.
Equating the evil Herod, who commissioned the slaughter of innocent babies, to traditional Catholics is part for the course when it comes to this Pontiff.
The Caudillo Pontiff….. runs his office like a Caudillo.
I viewed the excerpt and it made me think of abortion. Infanticide outside or inside the womb is murder.
“A holy longing for God wells up in the heart of believers because they know that the Gospel is not an event of the past but of the present.” such a secular reading of the bible! Of course the Gospel actually transcends time.
This is reading into the bible what you want to read, then sermonizing on your own eisegesis.
I think he knows that he can’t answer the four Cardinals’ dubia either through sloth or by logic and it is eating at him but in a neurotic way that it is making him superman in his own eyes such that the Gospels are actually about him versus Burke etc. in his subconscious and only secondarily about the actual New Testament people. I think a tiny part of him knows that there is something wrong with him. And he fears the historical rarity of being formally corrected by Cardinals if he does not answer the dubia.
We now read the Pope as a politician with an enemies list who advocates an ideology we cannot support. His credibility as a spokesman for Christ is fast disappearing. He has become a crank and is now beginning to appear ridiculous. Let us pray for him.
I thought Jorge Bergoglio was talking about himself when he said:
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” He slept, anesthetized by a cauterized conscience. He was bewildered, afraid. It is the bewilderment which, when faced with the newness that revolutionizes history, closes in on itself and its own achievements, its knowledge, its successes. The bewilderment of one who sits atop his wealth yet cannot see beyond it. The bewilderment lodged in the hearts of those who want to control everything and everyone. The bewilderment of those immersed in the culture of winning at any cost, in that culture where there is only room for ‘winners’, whatever the price. A bewilderment born of fear and foreboding before anything that challenges us, calls into question our certainties and our truths, our ways of clinging to the world and this life.”
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His conscience is cauterized, unable to respond to the dubia.
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He is a bewildered and frightened old man.
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He sits atop his wealth and power, and cannot see beyond it to the Gospel.
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I could go on, but you see what I mean. While he intended this for Traditionalists, what he responds to is his spiritual mirror and he doesn’t even know that.
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Marxist Peronist Argentinian.
I agree with Michael Dowd. Pope Francis works as if he were a politician. That is not good. See Orwell, politics are essentially coercion and deceit. Both are evident in his comparing to evil personified – Herod – Catholics whose only sins are to defend 2,000 year-old Church Teachings.
Aren’t we supposed to support the Pope?
Yes, when the Pope supports Catholicism.
Regardless of our thoughts about the Holy Father’s deeds and actions, he is the successor of St. Peter, appointed by Christ to lead the Church. If we are unhappy with something he’s said or done, we should pray for ourselves for understanding, for him, and for the whole church.
I make a practice of praying each night for the pope and his intentions.
“I make a practice of praying each night for the pope and his intentions.”
That is praiseworthy Sister and I mean that quite sincerely. However, as the interaction of Saint Paul and Saint Peter on one occasion indicates, sometimes action in addition to prayer is called for.
[…] FAITHFUL CATHOLICS ARE FRANCISCHURCH HERODS […]
I would be leery of saying I know better than the pope or classifying myself with Paul. The case has happened when serious work needs to be done, but it is dangerous to assume that we know better.
It is also dangerous to assume that a Pope, when he appears to contradict Holy Writ, or speaks on topics on which he has no charism of infallibility, is correct.
Sr. Christina,
Pope Francis has ignored Romans 13:4 which affirms the death penalty within a very fallible empire that had already killed Christ and James ( Acts12:2). And instead he asserted that the fifth commandment opposed the death penalty….but the fifth commandment occurs for example in Deuteronomy which has multiple God mandated death penalties in the same first person imperative for the Sinai covenant with the Jews.
Or take the issue of Judas. Pope Francis twce has cryptically alluded to a church statue in Europe as proof that God saved Judas in the end….but he never in those moments recounts Christ’s totally dire words on Judas….the most dire being said by Christ to His Father in prayer wherein Christ uses past tense prophecy which St. Justin Martyr asserted is unconditional as was the past tense prophecies of Isaiah 53 about Christ. If we can’t know better than this Pope ( and I was Dean’s List with the Jesuits whom I had for 8 years)…. then we all ought to walk away from religion if this man can pick and choose which scriptures he’ll ignore…and we all pretend he’s normal. I can’t remember one Jesuit in 8 years that had his lack of sense.
Does the Editor of the Pope’s Journal Think 2+2 = 5, if the Pope Says So? by John Zmirack
He slams the Four Cardinals, and he slams Trump with the comment about “winning.” About the ACTUAL, LITERAL baby-murderers in our culture today, he is silent, because he is their ally. Go to Bing, and search for EMMA BONINO POPE FRANCIS.
I’m glad we have a Pope Francis. He has brought modernism and Liberation Theology finally out in the open. With the dubia, the game is finally over.
The phrase “support the Pope” has several meanings; I’d be very careful if I found myself in the position of using it the same way that a modern homosexual activist demands that his family “support” him, by not opposing him when he is wrong, even if it makes him feel bad.
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There is some definite good in the Pope’s sermon, and I can’t see the swing at Traditionals– ironically enough, a lot of the tired old saw of the sticks-in-the-mud-as-villain that’s so common in Marxist influenced thought, but countered by this part:
seek God, as the Magi did, in the most distant corners of history, for they know that there the Lord awaits them. They go to the peripheries, to the frontiers, to places not yet evangelized, to encounter their Lord. Nor do they do this out of a sense of superiority, but rather as beggars who cannot ignore the eyes of those who for whom the Good News is still uncharted territory.
That sounds like places like here, or Jimmy Akin’s place, or the Catholic Geeks blog, or the many facebook Catholic Meme pages.
Seems someone is trying awfully hard to position this homily against traditional Catholics.
Yeah the Pope is. All you have to be is familiar with his prior bashings of traditional Catholics and it is as clear as a bell.
What a beautiful and insightful vision Pope Francis gives. If your heart is hardened…like Herods…blinded by attachment to the world…you too will perish. Those of you who oppose our good Pope at every turn have already received your judgment Terrible are God judgments against the heretics.
Thanks for your kind wishes James!