Monday, March 18, AD 2024 11:41pm

PopeWatch: Maureen Mullarkey

During this Pontificate PopeWatch has often regarded Maureen Mullarkey as being too extreme in her criticism of Pope Francis and then, usually, subsequent events indicate that her criticism was perhaps understated:

 

Since 1986, Islam’s character and purposes have become clearer. Evidence of the scale of its distance from Assisi’s cross-cultural smorgasbord of religious impulses has sharpened. If this Vatican logo tells us anything, it is that Pope Francis is comfortable with Islam’s ascendency. The “relation” made visual here is one of domination. Take a look.

This crescent does not appear alongside the cross, as if a companion to it. Rather, the Islamic symbol encircles the Christian one. What passes for a cross is feeble, barely recognizable. A watery post and cross beam curve like the blade of a scimitar, more evocative of the sword of Allah than the rood on which Christ hung. It is a logo for dhimmis.

Emphasizing Pope Francis’ personal comity with Islam, the design reflects the amour propre of a 21st-century ecumenist who mistakenly sees himself in the footprint of his namesake. Our self-styled “Servant of Hope” acts and speaks in disregard of Islam’s lethal rejection of Christianity and its doctrinal premises—a fatal blunder that the friar of Assisi did not make.

Nothing could be further from the sensibility of the historic St. Francis than concession of his faith’s truth claims in order to coexist with Islam. His aim was conversion, not reciprocal understanding. However pacific his proselytizing manner, he held fast to the stern substance of St. Paul’s words: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers… What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor. 6)

Despite commemorative hype—a soothing blend of anachronism and myth— the difference between the travels of these two Francises is vast. Il Poverello was not “reaching out” to the sultan in a gesture of interfaith dialogue. He was seeking the conversion of Islam via baptism of the sultan; Pope Francis seeks only rapprochement.

A former soldier himself, St. Francis was militant in his intentions, if peaceful in his methods. Present depictions of the saint as a proto-ecumenist are ahistorical distortions. Yet it is that distortion that fuels Pope Francis’s “outreach” style.

Go here to read the rest.  With this Pope it is always best to look for the worst and hope for the less than worst.

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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 4:12am

A good post.
The weak “yellow” and green cross signify his papacy, not the core and heart of the Catholic Church. She stands firm and fixed in defiance of error and is not contained.
The comparisons of Francis’ is spot on.

As lay members of the Order of Franciscan Minor, aka Knights of the Immaculata, this small except is very fitting; “His aim was conversion, not reciprocal understanding.” Amen.

Christ did command;
“Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matt. 29:18 Douay-Rheims Bible.)

If teaching is not geared towards conversion than the Servant of Hope is costly to the souls who will suffer from indifference.

Having everlasting life in union with Jesus Christ is where Hope resides.

All else is error.
A servant of hope should know this.

DonL
DonL
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 5:48am

Though chastisement of this errant flock is certainly justified, I’d much prefer a plague of locusts cast down upon us, rather than the plague contaminating God’s home in Rome.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 7:01am

From a Real Clear Religion article 3/24/2008, “St. Francis and the Conversion of the Muslims,” “”If we equate our religion with theirs, it only leads to confusion and contempt. As demonstrated by St Francis’s approach, Muslims are far more respectful and willing to listen to a person who acknowledges the great division that separates the two religions than to a person who says that all the religions are the same; that we all believe the same things; we all have the same faith.

“Although St. Francis was not on a formal mission of peace, converting the Muslims was his attempt to bring about peace. According to one scholar, Christopher Maier, ‘”Francis like the crusaders wanted to liberate the holy places of Palestine from Muslim rule. What was different was his strategy…He wanted their total submission to the Christian faith.'” The author quotes

“According to the Little Flower of St Francis which is a widely read historical account of the first friars lives, Francis prophesied that the Sultan would have a deathbed conversion. After Francis’ death he appeared to two friars and instructed them to find the Sultan and teach him the faith. It is also reported in the Little Flower that the Sultan instructed his sentinels to watch for two friars in the ports. When the friars were found the Sultan received them with great joy. ‘”The friars after instructing al-Kamil in the faith, administered the Sacrament of Baptism to the dying Sultan and ‘his soul was saved through the merits of St Francis'”.

Since day one, Not My Pope.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 7:38am

T. Shaw.

I’ve read the Little Flower of St. Francis and..of course.. loaned it out, never to be returned, but I treasured the accounts of this pious and holy man. Great fun, this book.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 10:27am

https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-forcing-christians-to-replace-jesus-with-communist-posters-turning-pulpits-into-game-rooms.htm

How far underground is far enough. Hey….Pope. let’s celebrate China’s icon Mao Zedong. Jesus who???

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 10:31am

Is a Christian doctor different?
CP CURRENT PAGE: WORLD | SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 2019
China forcing Christians to replace Jesus with Communist posters; turning pulpits into game rooms
China forcing Christians to replace Jesus with Communist posters; turning pulpits into game rooms
By Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post Reporter | Sunday, January 20, 2019

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Small Performance At The Church In Caowu Village, Which Is Now Also Covered With Party Propaganda. Video uploaded on January 16, 2019. | YouTube/ Bitter Winter
The Communist government of China is continuing forcing Christians to replace posters of Jesus Christ with Communist leaders, and is turning pulpits into entertainment venues.

Religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter reports that Chinese authorities are going from town to town, demanding that Christian icons be replaced with pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong and President Xi Jinping.

Initial reports of the initiative came out back in 2017, though several Christians have said it continues in full force in different provinces.

Eighty-year-old Fei Zhongju from Xiayi county revealed what authorities told him after barging into his home in October 2018:

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“If we come back for inspection and find that you haven’t put up Chairman Mao’s portrait, we’ll cancel your poverty alleviation benefits.”

Fei’s wife revealed that her husband fell from the table and seriously injured himself as he attempted to get up and comply with the orders.

“What have we believers in the Lord done wrong,” the woman said. “The government is forcing us to tear up portraits of the Lord Jesus, and as a result, my husband was injured.”

Government officials have threatened citizens that if they don’t take down their religious posters themselves, then the authorities will act.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 3:06pm

Pope Francis sure has a knack for vindicating his adversaries, doesn’t he?

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 3:22pm

BTW, why does that icon emphasize “Pope Francis Servant of Hope” instead of saying something like “Christ our Hope?” I think we know the answer. It’s hard to be humble when the liberal apparatchik tells you that you are so important.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 3:30pm

LQC.
Bullseye!

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, January 24, AD 2019 3:33pm

More likely it’s because “Pope Francis Servant of the Servants of God” might offend his Muslim hosts.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, January 25, AD 2019 2:42am

Maureen Mullarkey had Pope Francis number early on and expressed herself with great style—as she always does–in First Things as follows. For this she was fired by R. R. Reno. Of course, I cancelled my subscription immediately.

Here is the offending passage – like most things Mullarkey writes in criticism of Pope Francis, it has edge to it, as she can get quite hot about the subject:

“The road show is over. The spectacle flamed up and subsided, a Roman candle of demonic sanctimony. Think of it as pre-game warm-up for the main event: the global climate summit in Paris, November 30 to December 11. The Vatican is partnering with the Obama administration, at the U.N. and later in Paris, in magnifying state control over a free society and tightening the screws on the developed world. This, in the name of saving the planet from the production and growth of those very means by which the poor can raise themselves out of poverty.

“Our obligation to charity—caritas—is bound to the truth of things—in veritate. There is little truth in the aggressively promoted patchwork of contested science and hysteria that fuel apocalyptic prophecies. Yet the Vatican and Our Man in Havana militate against the imagined enemy of climate change while an actual, advancing one slaughters the faithful in its path.”

c matt
c matt
Friday, January 25, AD 2019 12:32pm

The weak “yellow” and green cross signify his papacy

It sure fits: Yellow for coward, green for Gaia worship.

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