Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:20am

PopeWatch: If Only the Tsar Knew!

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

 

Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, Russians would often say “If only the Tsar knew!”, assuming that the “Little Father” couldn’t possibly have endorsed some terrible policy of the Russian Imperial government.  After the fall of the Tsars, Soviets during the Stalin period would sometimes say “If only Stalin knew!”, assuming once again that the man at the top couldn’t possibly be responsible for the appalling crimes of the Stalinist period.  Any Catholics seeking to use such a formula for Pope Francis really shouldn’t:

Why did the final Relatio published in the Lineamenta include the paragraphs on homosexuality, extra-marital cohabitation and Communion for the divorced-and-remarried  that failed to gain the approval of the Synod Fathers in October.  (Paragraphs 52,53,55 in the Italian; the English has a slightly different numbering system.) 

“It was the Pope’s decision to include the points that did not receive the two-thirds majority,” Cardinal Baldisseri responded. “The Pope said: ‘These three points received an absolute majority. They were therefore not rejected with a ‘no,’ as they received more than 50 percent approval. They are therefore issues that still need to be developed. We as a Church want a consensus. These texts can be modified, that’s clear. Once there has been further reflection, they can be modified.”

Go here to read the rest.  A wise policy to follow is that in the absence of solid evidence to the contrary, always assume that the man at the top of an organization fully endorses the current policies and initiatives of that organization.

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Philip
Philip
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 5:00am

“…absolute majority..”

That’s a popular dirty martini concoction in Rome. Now his remarks makes sense.
Party On!

Father of seven
Father of seven
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 6:02am

Of course the Tsar knew. It is the Church of Francis after all. Contrary to another post, it does have doctrines and rules. We’re seeing some of those new doctrines expressed in the Relatio. There certainly are new rules as well, such as regards the TLM. Nature always abhors a vacuum.

Paul W Primavera
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 6:22am

“We as a Church want consensus.”
.
Stercus Tauri!
.
Truth is NOT determined by consensus.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 8:14am

Being a protestant (as opposed to being a modernist or personality cultist), I believe Objective Truth is not susceptible to a vote or to renovation.

Paul W Primavera
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 8:49am

I trust that statement was sarcasm, T Shaw.
.
😉

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 9:51am

Go here to read the rest. A wise policy to follow is that in the absence of solid evidence to the contrary, always assume that the man at the top of an organization fully endorses the current policies and initiatives of that organization.

Francis’ bad acts are initiatives at the apex and center of the Church.

The trouble you had a dozen years ago was the Dreher strand of thinking which expected the Vatican (whose total census of employees was in the lower four digits, from the Secretary of State to the janitors) to repair diseased dioceses or the Podles strand of thinking who fancied that the Vatican was somehow responsible in remediable ways for bad institutional cultures on the ground. The Pope has 3,000 bishops reporting to him. There was never the manpower in Rome to supervise diocesan administration and tiles Podles idea that some tiles in the mosaic of canon law were decisive is severely implausible. That’s not to say the Vatican did not do injurious things (the Paul Vi and Cdl. O’Boyle; John Paul II’s master of ceremonies; the Assissi mess; the failures vis a vis SSPX), it’s just that another bit of information in the flood of memoranda the Pope receives is just that and the implications of the Tsar knowing something are much more circumscribed than one might imagine. (That having been said, the Cdl-Archbishops who had been delinquent actors should have been removed forthwith: Law, Egan, and Mahoney at least; the Holy See was astonishingly patient with Grahmann of Dallas as well).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 9:58am

(Other bad acts: the 1970 missal, the effective suppression of the 1962 missal, the post-hoc blessing for girl acolytes, the Jadot bishops, the failed system for vetting episcopal nominations…).

Steve
Steve
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 12:26pm

Who knows, maybe the Holy Spirit did choose Bergoglio in order to expose him and the rest of the modernists in the Church that have been undermining the faith for the last 50 years. Afterall, it’s better to get these clowns out in the open so we know who our enemies are.

Franco
Franco
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 1:55pm

“Revised Praxis: To be granted to achieve the more active participation in the Novus Ordo Mass. The table of the Eucharist is to be extended and or supplemented with auxiliary tables in such a way as to provide for the new useful and necessary self-service ministry and for the restoration of the People’s Liturgical Buffet Eucharist Distribution Table.” CNN

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, January 30, AD 2015 9:34pm

“May God bless and kep the Tsar….Far away from us!”
. (Tevye – Fiddler on the Roof)

cpola
cpola
Saturday, January 31, AD 2015 11:24am

steve: “Afterall, it’s better to get these clowns out in the open so we know who our enemies are.”
.
Steve, right on!

c matt
c matt
Monday, February 2, AD 2015 11:52am

Actually, it wasn’t Tevye, it was the town’s Rabbi who said that prayer.

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