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Post by Tomas on Aug 27, 2017 12:30:45 GMT
All things considered I believe we are still obliged to try the utmost not to fall into the trap of critising the Holy Father in any broad ways. The numbers listed on actual seminarians were much more heartening than suspected. Conservatives instrinsically prefers other actions or priorities than various liberals, and especially on the web these Church politics matters abound, but we may perhaps hesitate to state "of course". What if well-meaning Catholics rather has got snared into criticise each other too loosely?
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Post by cato on Aug 27, 2017 15:23:47 GMT
Tomas I think everyone who has contributed here has done so in good faith and is worried about the papacy and the faith. Most share your desire not to criticise the actions or selective silences of pope Francis because they respect the papacy and so refrain from negative comment.
However I believe the use of silence can also be inappropriate and has been misused by church people especially during the child abuse cover up when bishops silenced many people who objected or reported abuse. Many ordinary catholics and most priests were silent due to a respect for the office of Bishop. And we all know how that ended up. If the ship is heading to the rocks someone needs to let the captain know just in case he might want to avoid drowning with his ship.
Are there any limits on how far a pope must go before we protest or comment I wonder? Or have we no right to object if say a Pope denied the divinity of Jesus ?Surely Popes are limited by the scriptures and consistent practice of the church? If God forbid a Pope teaches heresy must we too follow him obediently?
I do believe those who are pushing a radical agenda are using the praise worthy loyalty of catholics to the office of the papacy and the widespread silence as evidence that there is little opposition to the changes.
In church history various popes have made flawed decisions and some have given terrible example. Saints like Paul the apostle , Athanasius ,Columbanus and Catherine of Siena were prepared to publically and respectfully criticise a pope who had made public mistakes. There is a danger in joining those who have been criticising every Pope since 1968 but wait they have stopped criticising the pope! In fact they are now the most slavishly loyal unthinking papists!!! The spirit is working in mysterious ways....
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 27, 2017 15:34:23 GMT
The problem is that liberal Catholics often goad you by making everything into a debate on Pope Francis, even when you try to avoid direct criticism.
I do think we have to be very careful not to show disrespect to the Holy Father. I'm not sure how far I take this. I know one Opus Dei priest who tells me no Catholic should ever criticize the Pope in public. That seems excessive to me and I'm not sure what it's based on.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 27, 2017 15:37:34 GMT
Séamus's caution in interpreting the figures is laudable, however I can understand why men would hesitate to enter the seminary. How do they know what they will be asked to teach five, ten, twenty years down the line if this continues?
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Post by Tomas on Aug 27, 2017 16:07:47 GMT
Yes I believe you are cautious enough too. The key to criticism may be a continuing try as good as possible not being too broad and sweeping or carried away by feelings. The danger of too much silence - however good discretion is in itself - has probably been very understated in earlier decades.
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Post by Séamus on Aug 28, 2017 4:57:41 GMT
The problem is that liberal Catholics often goad you by making everything into a debate on Pope Francis, even when you try to avoid direct criticism. I do think we have to be very careful not to show disrespect to the Holy Father. I'm not sure how far I take this. I know one Opus Dei priest who tells me no Catholic should ever criticize the Pope in public. That seems excessive to me and I'm not sure what it's based on. There are quite a few groups apart from Opus Dei, both official and unofficial, who became so moulded into the John Paul papacy that it's hard to understand what direction they can take now. Followers of some apparitions and other messages,I can recall, were often quite snide about the interest they were getting(from younger people in particular) whilst the parish Legion of Mary or Blue Army only had a half a dozen elderly women. Well, for a start, the Legion requires a life commitment, following a seer doesn't. And one can see this year the timelessness of Fatima, this Pope has had to celebrate the anniversary however he feels any theses things generally
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Post by cato on Sept 6, 2017 18:34:59 GMT
The papal Dubia cardinals are disappearing one by one. Cardinal Cafarra RIP
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 12, 2017 10:34:59 GMT
Pope Francis now wants the Catechism to be even more categorical in its opposition the death penalty, despite a long tradition of Church support for it. www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/pope-francis-revise-catechism-to-show-death-penalty-is-inadmissible/www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/06/07/why-the-church-cannot-reverse-past-teaching-on-capital-punishment/edwardfeser.blogspot.ie/2017/03/mark-sheas-misrepresentation-of.htmlThis, to me, is the central passage from the Pope's speech: "Here we are not in any way contradicting past teaching, for the defence of the dignity of human life from the first moment of conception to natural death has been taught by the Church consistently and authoritatively. Yet the harmonious development of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth." This doesn't make any sense to me at all. Surely the second sentence simply negates the first sentence? I'm very familiar with the concept of the development of doctrine, in Newman's sense; that a teaching deepens and becomes more elaborate or defined. But authoritative teaching can never be contradicted. And, as Edward Feser argues beyond all doubt, the justice of the death penalty, in principle at least, IS authoritative Church teaching. These are examples Feser gives: "For example, Pope St. Innocent I taught that to deny the legitimacy of capital punishment would be to go against biblical authority, indeed “the authority of the Lord” himself. Pope Innocent III required adherents of the Waldensian heresy, as a condition for their reconciliation with the Church and proof of their orthodoxy, to affirm the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Pope St. Pius V promulgated the Roman Catechism, which states that:
Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder."Surely: "the harmonious development of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth" could allow anything whatsoever? This is deeply depressing. This pontificate is an absolute nightmare. I come more and more to think that traditionalists were right all along, and that every Pope since at least Vatican II has been at least partly misguided or imprudent, that the Church has taken a wrong turn since Vatican II. Because it was the supposed lion of orthodoxy himself, St. John Paul II, who pushed us down some of this path with regard to the death penalty. And I say that with great sadness as I love Saint John Paul II.
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Post by cato on Oct 12, 2017 18:47:23 GMT
Pope Francis now wants the Catechism to be even more categorical in its opposition the death penalty, despite a long tradition of Church support for it. www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/pope-francis-revise-catechism-to-show-death-penalty-is-inadmissible/www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/06/07/why-the-church-cannot-reverse-past-teaching-on-capital-punishment/edwardfeser.blogspot.ie/2017/03/mark-sheas-misrepresentation-of.htmlThis, to me, is the central passage from the Pope's speech: "Here we are not in any way contradicting past teaching, for the defence of the dignity of human life from the first moment of conception to natural death has been taught by the Church consistently and authoritatively. Yet the harmonious development of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth." This doesn't make any sense to me at all. Surely the second sentence simply negates the first sentence? I'm very familiar with the concept of the development of doctrine, in Newman's sense; that a teaching deepens and becomes more elaborate or defined. But authoritative teaching can never be contradicted. And, as Edward Feser argues beyond all doubt, the justice of the death penalty, in principle at least, IS authoritative Church teaching. These are examples Feser gives: "For example, Pope St. Innocent I taught that to deny the legitimacy of capital punishment would be to go against biblical authority, indeed “the authority of the Lord” himself. Pope Innocent III required adherents of the Waldensian heresy, as a condition for their reconciliation with the Church and proof of their orthodoxy, to affirm the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Pope St. Pius V promulgated the Roman Catechism, which states that:
Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder."Surely: "the harmonious development of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth" could allow anything whatsoever? This is deeply depressing. This pontificate is an absolute nightmare. I come more and more to think that traditionalists were right all along, and that every Pope since at least Vatican II has been at least partly misguided or imprudent, that the Church has taken a wrong turn since Vatican II. Because it was the supposed lion of orthodoxy himself, St. John Paul II, who pushed us down some of this path with regard to the death penalty. And I say that with great sadness as I love Saint John Paul II. In defence of John Paul I wonder did his experience of Nazi genocide in Poland , much of it directed at the Church and later Soviet tyranny colour his view of the death penalty? I favour it in limited cases in theory but don't believe that states can be trusted not to abuse it. The vast bulk of abuse of the death penalty has been in dictatorships. On a prudential level it makes sense to oppose it but there are cases like during a violent revolution when it may become necessary for national survival. The catechism struck the balance right. I fear this is really a trojan horse to establish the practice of changing other teachings. It is an interesting topic in its' own right. Abolition has in my view also led to a desensitising in how we view murder and how we treat the families of murder victims.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 12, 2017 22:26:59 GMT
I'm sure that did have an effect on St. John Paul II. But I wish his zeal for orthodoxy had outweighed all those emotional, biographical considerations.
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Post by cato on Oct 13, 2017 7:37:18 GMT
A few days ago Pope Francis called for a "True cultural Revolution". The crass cultural insensitivity, historical ignorance and blinkered vision of this pontiff is astounding. Using the poisonous terminology of Chairman Mao which resulted in millions of deaths and untold suffering for the Chinese people and the oppressed people of their Tibetian gulag is deplorable. Whats next? "A final solution" speech ? A Great Leap Forward? A 5 year plan? Let a thousand flowers bloom? Prepare for a new little red book with the thoughts of chairman Francis.
He did condemn gender ideology though. One step forward . Three steps backwards then. Another day in the mad house once know as the Vatican.
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Post by Séamus on Oct 13, 2017 13:20:16 GMT
In itself, opposition to the death penalty is not something that would cause me to worry about the papacy. I hope he realises that there'll be plenty of executions in Italy if sharia law is ever imposed there as a result of fewer Catholic families vs. Lampedusa. The Ordinary Form liturgy of the hours has an interesting from St Vincent of Lerins which one may find is worth reflecting on.
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Post by cato on Oct 28, 2017 21:00:30 GMT
Andrew Brown over at the Guardian has a truly terrible pro Francis's reforms article called "The War against Francis". The divisions in the church are down to a Jungian extrovert/introvert clash it seems.
When you read it , it is impossible to imagine a previous pope getting such praise. Needless to say the traddies are the evil bad guys.
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Post by Tomas on Oct 30, 2017 13:26:54 GMT
Andrew Brown over at the Guardian has a truly terrible pro Francis's reforms article called "The War against Francis". The divisions in the church are down to a Jungian extrovert/introvert clash it seems. When you read it , it is impossible to imagine a previous pope getting such praise. Needless to say the traddies are the evil bad guys. Think I reluctantly have to read this article even though one might tell before-hand what it is about. Several at the never traditional Swedish Catholic forums has commented in a more or less positive way... but then almost a whole people are badly marked by all these decades or even centuries of red politics and Lutheran State Culture.
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Post by cato on Oct 30, 2017 16:52:45 GMT
The article is overly long but is still worth reading. It makes sweeping claims about a break or a rupture in teaching.
To date no papal spokesperson has said it is inaccurate.
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