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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

THE HOLY FATHER IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK: THE WORLD IS STARTING TO TURN ON HIM BECAUSE THEY ARE BEGINNING TO REALIZE HIS HOLINESS IS A CATHOLIC!

I've posted a series of posts on Pope Francis and how wrong the world has been about him and how wrong the neo-conservatives, neo--traditionalists are about him. Here's another sign that Pope Francis is on the right track:
 
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Why Pope Francis Isn't a Liberal Reformer

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POPE FRANCIS
It's been quite the honeymoon. Not too long after Pope Francis succeeded Benedict XVI in March 2013 to become the new head of the Vatican, reporters, pundits and even comedians began to sing his praises. Why, exactly?

Because he said things like, "I'm a sinner" and "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" and "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!... Even the atheists. Everyone!"

But, as the old saying goes, talk is cheap. Pope Francis can present himself as a more compassionate pontiff all he wants. With over 40 years experience working within the stubbornly Conservative Catholic Church, the 78-year-old is no liberal. The reality is he is quite content maintaining the status quo.

Let's start with LGBT rights.

Back when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in his native Argentina, the former Jorge Bergoglio often butted heads with the government. In 2010, as legislators were debating the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage, Mr. Enlightened had this to say about it:
In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family... At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God's law engraved in our hearts.
Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God's plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a 'move' of the father of lies [aka the devil] who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.
I invoke the Lord to send his Spirit on senators who will be voting, that they do not act in error or out of expediency, but according to what the natural law and the law of God shows them... We remember what God said to his people in a moment of great anguish: 'This war is not yours, but God's': defend us, then, in this war of God.
Bergoglio's ignorant, paranoid comments (not to mention his desperate prayer) fell on deaf ears. Argentina became the first Latin American country to officially recognize same-sex marriages that same year.

Since he became Pope Francis his views have remain unchanged. As recently as this past January, he told an audience in Manila, "The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage. These realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces which threaten to disfigure God's plan for creation... Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself."

That same month according to Reuters, during an impromptu speech on a plane in front of journalists, "He told of an education minister he once knew who was offered loans to build schools for the poor, but on condition their libraries stocked a book on gender theory, the questioning of traditional male and female roles."

According to Reuters, without a hint of irony, he said, "This is ideological colonization. They colonize people with ideas that try to change mentalities or structures... But this is not new. This was done by the dictatorships of the last century." Reporter Philip Pullella notes that Francis was "citing the Hitler Youth and Balilla, its Italian equivalent under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini." How progressive.

The very next month, he threw his support behind an unnecessary referendum in Slovakia that proposed "strengthening" the already existing bans on gay marriage and gay couples adopting children. The needless measure failed thanks to very low voter turnout.

Like his discredited views on homosexuality and gender roles, The Pope's views on women and reproductive rights are also out of step with modern times.

Besides being firmly anti-contraception, he is adamantly anti-abortion to the point of cruelty. Despite publicly asserting that the Vatican "obsesses" too much about this legal medical procedure, he continues to speak out against it. Consider this comment he made in 2013:
"Each child who is unborn, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who, even before he was born, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world."
Actually, each child has the face of their biological parents but I digress.

Francis has also referred to abortion as an evil product of "throw-away culture" and believes that "Not to allow the further development of a being which already has all the genetic code of a human being is not ethical. The right to life is the first among human rights. To abort a child is to kill someone who cannot defend himself."

Tell that to the estimated 32,000 rape victims who get pregnant every year. I mean is it so terrible to not want to bring into the world a living reminder of your trauma? According to Mr. Open-Minded, it is.

Also unacceptable to the Holy See is artificial birth control. According to Reuters, "The Church approves only natural methods of birth control, principally abstinence from sex during a woman's fertile period." That being said, don't have too many kids. That's not "responsible parenthood". But don't be childless, either. That's "a selfish choice". "Infallible" Popes excluded, of course.

Recently, it was reported that Francis is offering to "pardon" women who have abortions as well as the professional caregivers who practice the procedure through intermediary priests known as "missionaries of mercy". As HuffPo's Carol Kuruvilla noted in reference to a statistic from a Guttmacher Institute report, "Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as all American women." And Catholics remain deeply divided on the issue: 46 percent in favor, 47 percent opposed.

How many women who have undergone the procedure are looking forward to being paternalistically forgiven by these celibate male "missionaries of mercy"?

Which brings us to the subject of female ordination. In 2013, during a long interview with America Magazine, the pontiff was asked about the role of women in the church. This is how he started:
I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of 'female machismo,' because a woman has a different make-up than a man. But what I hear about the role of women is often inspired by an ideology of machismo.
Two months before he gave this interview, the media darling revealed just how inclusive he truly is:
As far as the ordination of women, the Church has already spoken out and the answer is no. John Paul II made the Church's stance definitive. The door is closed.
Despite recently speaking out against the low wages women receive compared to men, as you can plainly see he is far from a feminist. In his concretely conservative mind, women are "special", not "equal". As for members of the LGBT community, they're in the same boat. Until their sexuality is no longer considered "disordered" and "a sin against God" by a man who "stands firm" on "the discipline of celibacy" for male-only priests, the Pope's friendly overtures will remain empty pandering.

And considering what happened to former Australian priest Greg Reynolds, the idea of this Pope embracing any kind of significant reform is truly laughable.

So stop calling him "progressive" already.



10 comments:

CPT Tom said...

I must say I am pleased that the Pope has made a strong effort to make things clear since the Synod last year. He still puzzles me from time to time but he seems to be coming into sharper focus. I read somewhere that it is like he has finally figured out that he is not just the Bishop of Rome, but, is Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Catholic Church. As such he has finally figured out how to speak to all of it. This is good, and urgently needed, considering the coming storm in October. God Bless you Father in all that you do.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

As I reread this article from a Canadian blogger, I wonder if it is written as a kind of satire or tongue in cheek as though he is writing from the progressive post-secular world in which we live that see the Catholic Church as the number one threat to their political, secular agenda?

What he writes, in terms of Pope Francis perspective and how the secular press twists what he says to create dissatisfaction amongst orthodox Catholics and thus becomes a divine and conquer strategy for the secularists' agenda.

I wonder if this blogger is putting the shoe on the other foot and using the same tactics against secularists that they use against the pope?

He certainly makes clear the agenda of the secularists and why being a Catholic today is difficult and will get even more difficult.

Anonymous said...

"The word is starting to turn on him..."

Oooooh! How ominous, how threatening......

JusadBellum said...

What does "reform" mean to some people that would distinguish it from the word "revolution" or "repudiation"?

Suppose you wanted to 'reform' the Democratic party by adopting the GOP party platform. Would be a 'reform' or a complete capitulation?

Now, we call the Sexual Revolution a "revolution" because it overthrew public morality root and branch, separating subjective will-to-power from objective teleos reality. Suddenly so long as a person "wants X" we are all to bow down and worship that choice as "good for them" completely apart from any objective read on whether X is in fact good or good for a person per se.

That's a huge revolution.

It also produces social chaos and turmoil and undermines every non-state organization leaving only a centralized state standing....which was the Gramshian idea... the "Long march through the institutions" to undermine non-state actors while using the predictable turmoil as justification for massive increases in scope and power of the centralized state.

So that ultimately there will be a vast sea of sexually chaotic and economically exploited serfs, atomized into cliques and age co-horts who can be manipulated at will.

Only by bringing down the sexual revolutionaries do we have a prayer of stopping the slide to socialist communism even in this country.

The way out is though through the Gospel - seek first the King and His Kingdom as preferable to all other creatures and we'll reap the benefits in culture and politics of this preferential option for God and godliness.

Anonymous said...

Dear Father,

Sorry, the blogger's column is serious. He is not kidding.

I just scanned the blog of Canadian blogger in question.

He has a history of attacking the Holy Catholic Church.

His language is foul...very dirty.

The Huffington Post column that you have republished here was written actually in 2013 A.D.

The Canadian blogger in question began the original article as follows:
=============================


8 Reasons Pope Francis Isn’t A Liberal Reformer

"Ever since he replaced the despicable Benedict XVI as the head of the Vatican back in March, Pope Francis has been the toast of the media."

Please do not search that man's blog.

Again, his comments about Holy Mother Church are vicious and filthy.

The language scattered about his blog is obscene.

Would Huffington Post, for example, publish the articles of a vicious anti-...(fill in the religion)?

Well, they will promote a vicious anti-Catholic.

Mark Thomas

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Thank you Mark. I didn't google him and I won't. But your point is well taken and it is time for Catholics to wake up and smell the coffee.

There is real hatred for the Catholic Church amongst liberal elites in entertainment, the media and politics. Even Hilary Clinton says that if one has deeply held believes opposing birth control, abortion, gay marriage and the other things associated with sexuality, one has to change their religious beliefs. That is pretty damning of Hilary. Secularist see religion as coping mechanism, not about truth, not about salvation and certainly not about sin.

If this man had written ugley things about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or exhibited racist attitudes, he would not have been given the space or the time of day, but because he is an anti-Catholic bigot, he gets the time under the heading freedom of expression.

CPT Tom said...

If the Pope isn't pleasing the progressives nor the Main Stream Media, Good. Considering the state of the world, that has been one of my concerns, he should not be well received, especially for being misquoted (eg "who am I to judge?) or taken out of context. More than ever the Church needs to be counter-cultural and in the Word but not of the World. Dangerous times are ahead and the Church, and the Holy Father particularly needs to be a shining beacon on a hill pointing the way to our Lord. God Bless our Holy Father and may he be strong as Christ's vicar on Earth!

Anonymous 2 said...

This should not be news to those who have been listening to or reading Pope Francis in context, both textual and circumstantial -- a lost art for many, both Catholic and non-Catholic, in this age of sound bites it seems.

Православный физик said...

One can tell much about a person, through their enemies.

Mark said...

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

"If this man had written ugly things about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or exhibited racist attitudes, he would not have been given the space or the time of day, but because he is an anti-Catholic bigot, he gets the time under the heading freedom of expression."

Yes, Father.

Something that I have found fascinating for years is that public figures who issue vicious attacks against Holy Mother Church do so without fear of harming their careers.

From entertainers to...whatever...if one bashes Catholicism, he or she does so without the slightest fear of damaging one's career.

However, should a person, for example, mock and berate (and I don't believe that one should) "indigenous" religions, said person would be in danger of losing his/her career.

Political correctness and all that...

But Holy Mother Church is a punching bag.

That said, how much of that is the fault of Catholics?

With a population in the tens of millions, why do Catholics roll over in the face of such attacks against Holy Mother Church?

I would think that via peaceful means, such a massive population of Catholics would mount a vigorous defense of Jesus Christ and His Church.

Mark Thomas