For a man who condemns ideologues, one of the salient features of the current Pontificate is how ideological Pope Francis is. He is completely impervious to factual evidence when it comes to what he believes. A prime example is his contention that arms merchants, merchants of death, are the causative factor in regard to wars:
Pope Francis refuses to admit that the profit to be made by arms manufacturers simply isn’t the cause of almost all wars. The ISIS massacres in Paris were not caused by arms merchants and neither was the attempt by the Pope’s native Argentina to seize the Falklands in 1982. Blaming wars on merchants of death of course spares the Pope from recognizing that the causes of wars are complicated and that they are rarely the result of the stick figure evil capitalists that seem to be the chief villains in the Pope’s imagination.
One must also note that the masters of war, Nazi Germany, loved this pope’s native country which was so conveniently able to allow “refugees” from Nazi Germany to get “sanctuary.
There is so little wisdom in this man who is detached from reality when it comes to this, and other, issues. He routinely holds fast to opinions contradicted by facts as though he is impervious to truth. Jesus weeps.
The Pope always has to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the atomic bomb detonations were as apocalyptic as he imagines, then why today are both cities prosperous and wealthy? This man needs to go back to Argentina where he belongs.
Trump makes more sense on guns than a Pope. This am there are 170 hostages of 10 Jihadists in Mali in the Radisson Hotel. Trump’s point…if 20 of those guests had pistols, 10 men couldn’t take 170 hostages…ditto for France. Politically correct gun laws are delivering lambs to Islamists. New York is similarly disarmed.
We are watching the surrender Pope. Surrender to the culture, to the globalists, to the ideologies of modernity, to the islamists….and surrender of Catholic moral ethics.
What gets you about him is that he’s forever playing the opinionated ignoramus. Warfare is only economically beneficial to peripheral countries who can produce and ship war materiel without losing their capital stock and without suffering opportunity costs which trump the benefits to their munitions and aerospace industry. If they are peripheral countries, they’re not going to have much influence (or any influence) over the course of political events antecedent to the war.
I kind of agree about World War One being a useless slaughter. The rest is just more evidence for the “unfiltered hippiespeak” hypothesis
A veritable Pollock with the broad-brush, our pontiff. I used to get upset with his one-trick rhetorical style, but now it barely rates more than an exasperated eyeroll.
Well to add to the profound depth that we already know of this man, today at a papal audience (11/20/15), Papa Francisco exhibited his caring and understanding side, blurting: “Neurotic Priests Scare Me”:
http://news.yahoo.com/neurotic-priests-scare-says-pope-183920387.html
‘In comments that had his audience chuckling at a conference on training for the priesthood, the 78-year-old pontiff revealed he is instinctively suspicious of overly pious candidates.
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“I will tell you sincerely, I’m scared of rigid priests,” he said. “I keep away from them. They bite!”
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Francis resorted to humour to make a serious point that some people that are drawn to a clerical career are fundamentally unstable — and that inevitably creates problems for the church if they are not weeded out.
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“If you are sick, if you are neurotic, go and see a doctor, spiritual or physical,” he added. “The doctor will give you pills. But, please, don’t let the faithful pay for neurotic priests.”
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As well as assessing the spiritual state of candidates, seminaries should also seek to judge their physical and psychological condition, Francis argued.’
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Ah, Papa Francisco! So kind, so supportive, of all those stupid neurotic priests that should go see a shrink: better yet pack it up and quit the priesthood. You are all “making the faithful pay” for your problems.
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Right now, I am thinking of one very little man in a very big position making us all pay for his problems.
Let me guess, these “neurotic priests” are traditionalists.
When we say the Our Father at the end of the rosary for the Holy Father’s intentions, I pray instead for his conversion. Now I’m ammending that to add, ” and for his mental health.” There is something really off with this pope and the off seems to be progressing. It’s not just hubris; he is out of touch and his attacks on various segments of society and the church feed the liberal press and other enemies of Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular. Soon Frank athe Hippie Pope may be perceived as a joke though leaving a damaged church as his legacy is not funny.
Alzheimer’s?
The latest I read (Father Z’s) is that he has chastised the German clergy for their laxity and told them to get to confession more.
Can we hope?
“Can we hope?”
No. His unvarying pattern is to follow up an orthodox statement with something appalling. Perhaps there’s another Scalfari interview about to be published…
“I will tell you sincerely, I’m scared of rigid priest.” he said. “I keep away from them. They bite.”
My priest would be considered “rigid,” if you consider his love for Jesus found in the Traditional Latin Rite, Adoration Chapel (perpetual) and on going adult formation instruction. The “bite,” is the vocation boom coming from our parish. Holy young men and women who are dedicating their lives to serve the Lord. They have been brought to hear the Call do in part by the practices of a rigid pastor who is anything but unstable.
I will pray for him again. Our current Pope.
Our Father in heaven knows what is going on.
He can not be deceived.
Isn’t this the same pope who, after one of the earlier horrors of ISIS, wailed to those who apparently would be armed, to do something about this? What, have a dialogue?
Philip with one L, I’m not an MD, but based on personal experience with foreign dignitaries’ visits years ago I would guess that there are MD employees from several countries’ agencies that make it their business to observe heads of state close up when such VIPs are in town. The pontiff’s prouncements are certainly erratic.
Oops, my comment was to Phillip with 2 Ls. Reading glasses are fogged.
CAM.
I know your comment is for the double (L) Philip, however I work with Alzheimer’s patients in a memory care facility.
From my perspective dementia is more plausible an explanation than Alzheimer’s, and I can not speak for the other Phillip but I wonder if he was rhetorically asking “Alzheimer’s?”
I was more rhetorical but nonetheless serious. He clearly has an inability to form new thoughts, is somewhat moody in his replies to others and seems rather conspiracy minded. These can be early signs of Alzheimer’s but I am not an expert in this. So perhaps dementia?
Dementia is a group of symptoms that might explain some of the rhetoric from Holy Father.
Motor skills, memory loss, language… “judgement”…are a few of the symptoms of dementia. Vascular dementia is very common, due to blood clots, strokes and is only one of a few illnesses that effect the brain. Alzheimer’s is another illness associated with dementia.
No armchair diagnosis here.
Are his judgements and motives coming from a sound mind? In his position as Pope one prays that damaged brain cells are far fewer than the one’s that litter the inside of our Muslim President. No offense Barack.
Love it, Philip!
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“In his position as Pope one prays that damaged brain cells are far fewer than the one’s that litter the inside of our Muslim President. No offense Barack.”
Philip,
No armchair diagnosis here either since both would require more work to confirm.
Unfortunately, such musings are necessitated by Pope Francis’ own actions. The most charitable explanation is that he has some organic process that impairs his reasoning. The other alternative is that he is a poor thinker who’s formation was marred by the post-Vatican II efforts of many to corrupt the truth perennially taught by the Church and who is so enamored of the distorted vision of man and the World by his fellow Latin American prelates and the politics of the region that he is incapable of acknowledging the truth.
I have to say I doubt the former and believe the later explanation to be true in his case.
Philip,
You may switch options when you read his latest quoted in TIME….todays homily:
” “It’s all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war,” Pope Francis said. “A war can be justified, so to speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be—a little here, a little there—there is no justification.”
I’m with option one….his mind is impaired…just self defense deep down inside, does not exist in his reality when the number of battle sites increase. I guess when they decrease, he then can accept some just wars but it’s a math problem to him. He’s making Trump look sane. If both of them are in office in 2017, I’m withdrawing from the stock market which I’m beating for this year by 4 percentage points. I will not start a hedge fund; I will look for a hedge to hide behind…with a bottle of Argentinian Malbec.
Now the Vatican has furiously denied the report, originally appearing in Quotidiano Nazionale regarding P. Francis’ medical appointment for a brain tumor, the original report appearing about Oct. 21, 2015:
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http://www.quotidiano.net/papa-tumore-1.1409653
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The report is that the pope had been seen for a spot that was a possible tumor on his brain. It appeared in a scan (one wonders why he was having a scan in the first place), and an expert on the type of potential tumor, Dr. Takanori Fukushima, diagnosed the “small, dark spot” several months ago. Either the pope actually was flown, in the papal helicopter to the clinic, according to the eyewitness(es), and landed on the clinic’s own landing pad, which surprised personnel (there is an Italian military base nearby, where most of the high-level high-security Italian political personnel touch down): or (more likely) the report is that Dr. Fukushima and staff were flown to the Vatican and he landed in the papal helicopter pad behind the Leonine Walls: but because of the secrecy, the eyewitnesses so obviously they concluded this was a very confidential event.
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The story of course has been vigorously denied (methinks they protest too much), but it is replete with many details (I studied the original Italian article in detail, and translated it to be sure of my analysis: such as, the medical facility being named (Clinica San Rossore di Barbaracina, where Dr. Fukushima works part of the year (the rest of the year he is usually at Duke University Medical School; also, the clinic is part of the prestigious Univ of Pisa medical school); also that it was leaked by a medical staff member who saw the pope’s legal name on medical records charts.
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Quotidiano Nazionale is not a tabloid-type of paper, and the editor has firmly stood by the story, stating they checked their facts thoroughly and decided to report them. QN went on to say “doctors examined the tumor and it was found to be benign.” Um-hmm.
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Add to that the (at least) two occasions when the Pope has stumbled in public ascending stairs during ceremonies at the Vatican—not unusual if he is on brain-med, irradiation, or if it is just a side-effect of the tumor.
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Another aspect of this is that our dear ever-truthful friend, Fr. Federico Lombardi stated, “”I can confirm that no Japanese doctor came to the Vatican to see the pope and there were no examinations of the type indicated in the article,” so now you KNOW the story is true.
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And, almost on cue, a medical administrator for Dr. Fukushima, one Lori Radcliffe (but she is listed as a “course manager for Dr. Fukushima at Duke Univ Medical School in N. Carolina: she was listed as a co-participant in a May, 2014 “workshop” conducted in part by Dr. Fukushima at Mahway NJ on “Advanced Skull Base Microanatomy
and Hands-On Dissection Workshop”) — but how could she know for certain if Dr. Fukushima did or did not see the Holy Father, when she is a continent away is hard to understand), contradicted Fr. Lombardi in fact (Radcliffe called the report “absolutely false”—which is very general in its denial), when trying to support Lombardi’s denial:
“Radcliffe said that, while Fukushima DID SEE the pope, he simply shook his hand alongside thousands of people this year at a general audience at the Vatican and never treated or evaluated him.”
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So, I am sure under sworn deposition, say, for example by Mr. McClarey, esq., it would be established, “So, in fact, Dr. Fukushima DID SEE the pope, is that not correct, Fr. Lombardi? So what exactly was the nature of the contact? How long was it? It isn’t that easy to get to see the pontiff himself, is that not correct, Fr. Lombardi, for Joe Six-Pack, even Dr. Joe Six-Pack,, perhaps a neurosurgeon even? How many neurosurgeons has he seen in the last year, even in a ‘general audience’ (that claim by Radcliffe I thought was a little to circumscribing and suspicious) ?” (Well forgive me, but I just had to..)
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I mention this story with some of the background, because it has too many well-connected parts to discount, and independently checking them out, at least for me, they all fit together. It also explains the increasingly erratic and loss-of-self-control-type events involving this pontiff, esp. the recent assailing of “neurotic priests”, telling them to “see a doctor and take some pills” (really, he said that), and that they should be a burden on the faithful. I have seen this type of spiraling-out-of-control behavior before, which persons could not self-check and -control, in persons with brain tumor or neurological issues. Yes, just a layman’s observation, but look at all the facts with this pontiff, and the furious denials that don’t seem to add up.
One other thing about Fr. Lombardi’s curious denial of the medical evaluation of P. Francis: Lombardi carefully stated “there were no examinations of the type indicated in the article.”
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“No examinations of the type indicated.” That is highly circumscribed as well. All very curious.
Also: one reason to have a “scan” would be…issues with loss-of-balance. SOP.
Steve and Bill.
Well. Your due diligence is adding up.
Maybe some 15 yr. aged cheddar would go well with that Malbec from…..where? Oh no, dementia kicking in!
Philip,
The Pope is right about war everywhere. There was even shoving at Zimbabwe’s Mr. Ugly contest…prepare yourself for major dental horror…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/22/world/offbeat-world/runner-up-accuses-zimbabwes-mr-ugly-pageant-judges-of-bias/#.VlI2CHo8KK1
bill bannon
The comment; He is ugly only when he opens his mouth, brought a smile of sorts.
Thank goodness for dental health.
Gum disease is uhmmm, less than cheeky.
Definitely a war going on in that mouth.