Yesterday I read Archbishop Vigano's letter to the pope. Like he did with the SSPX, Leo dissed the archbishop first agreeing to a private meeting and then changing his mind and refusing. Hmm...first thing I thought of was "Say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no."
Some days I feel like a bobble head doll just shaking my head over the insanity in the Church. What's the latest? Listening centers instead of confessionals for the pope's Corpus Christi trip to Spain. Truth these days is stranger than fiction.
Pope Francis often described the Church as a "field hospital" for sick people. Thinking along those lines, I see Bishop Athanasius Schneider as a doctor who correctly diagnoses the plague invading the Church when so many "doctors" claim the patient is healthy. He brought up five wounds in his December 18th meeting with Pope Leo and described what he sees as the prescription for healing. One of those wounds dealt with the Traditional Latin Mass and the situation with the SSPX.
How many times, how many meetings, how many plane trips, how much money, how many cardinals dancing on the head of a pin does it take before we can send that dead synodal horse to the glue factory? And why am I not surprised that, like the Phoenix, it's risen again?
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| Who Is Pope Leo? |
Seems likely these days. Pope Leo seems to have enthusiastically embraced the Francis legacy of LGBTQ promotion. Not a good sign that's for sure.
When Pope Leo walked out on the balcony in Rome clothed in the traditional vestments, one hoped that the exterior matched the interior. Did we have a pope who would restore the faith of our fathers and set us back on the right track? Or would we soon be disillusioned and see that we had a man walking in the footsteps of Francis.
The pope sent a strong message against cohabitation and in favor of Christian marriage during the Jubilee of Families. What a needed message for our modern world! And what a repudiation of Francis' scandalous remarks that cohabitation is true marriage. It isn't!
I recently had a conversation with a handyman doing some work for us. He and his live in partner both came from sad family situations. His mother was divorced several times. Her parents were divorced as well. They've been together for sixteen years, but have no intention of marrying. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that he's a lapsed Catholic.
One of Francis's worst moves was appointing a woman, a nun, to oversee all the religious congregations in the Church, both men and women. That was just one of his innovations, essentially changing canon law.
It is the responsibility of the clergy, not women religious or laity (neither men or women) to teach, GOVERN, and sanctify. Religious sisters and laity can cooperate in the work, but canon law prohibits their playing a juridical role. Check out this article:
Joseph Ratzinger in his book, Democracy in the Church: Possibilities and Limits, spoke of the "absolutely inadmissible de facto separation between the power of order and that of government" which relegates the sacraments to the "magical" and ecclesiastical jurisdiction "to the profane."
Archbishop Vigano also weighed in with a reality check about Pope Leo's early days.
It is normal and humanly understandable that more than a decade of open persecution of Catholics by the one who presented himself as their Pope would lead many of us to desire a truce, hoping that Our Lord would give His Church - if not a new Pius X - at least another Benedict XVI.
But this legitimate desire - certainly animated by good feelings and love for the Church - cannot transform itself into a virtual reality in which, even against all evidence, everything must necessarily be read as a confirmation of what we would like, and not of what is really happening. We cannot build for ourselves a "virtual church" with a "virtual papacy" that we love and serve in a consoling but unreal fiction.
The confirmation of a notorious heretic to the Cathedra of Saint Gallen in Switzerland; the appointment of a nun as Secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in line with the appointment of a Prefectess by Bergoglio; the repeated references to the heretical documents of his predecessor and to Vatican II; the declarations on ecumenism and synodality, and finally the acceptance of climate fraud; all place Robert Francis Prevost in evident and disturbing continuity with his predecessor, and it will certainly not be the stole and mozzetta that will change reality.
Along with this, we have evidence of a new crackdown on the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass). In Charlotte, the bishop has banned the Mass of the Ages from all diocesan churches. He's relegated it to a Protestant church in Moorefields only two Sundays a month.
Steve Bannon interviewed Liz Yore about what's happening. Check out the interview here.
I couldn't help thinking of Antonio Gramsci as I listened to the interview. Gramsci developed a theory of Communism that replaced violent overthrow of western cultures with infiltration and the slow march through the institutions. If you're interested read more about Gramsci here.
It looks like enthusiasm over Pope Leo was premature. Let us pray for him, but have no illusions.
I often check LifeSiteNews in the morning. Today I read John Henry Weston's commentary. I love the phrase he used, "anchored in charity." Imagine a world where all of us anchor our little boats with charity! Check out the article. It's short but pithy.:
Toward a more excellent way: speaking the truth in charity
One of my readers left a link to a good sermon that outlines how we should respond to the pope. I found it personally challenging and a bit of a reprimand. The unnamed priest talks about "real Catholicism." He begins by making the distinction between the two ways the pope speaks, the first as the authoritative head of the Church expressing Catholic truth that is binding on the flock.
White smoke this evening heralded the election of the first American pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost. He is the least American of all the U.S. cardinals having spent years in Peru as a missionary bishop. As head of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he is probably better known by more of the cardinals. Perhaps that played a role in his election. At any rate we have a pope, Leo XIV.
