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PopeWatch: Bergoglio Party

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Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours – and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.

CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

 

 

Rorate Caeli brings us the musings of Antonio Socci, one of the keener observers of the Church in Italy on what he refers to as the Bergoglio Party:

 

To the courageous headline in yesterday’s “Libero” (“The Pope’s Party. The Vatican’s Political Shift”) only one idea should be added: the Bergoglio Party is one thing (which is doing harm, but will fade with him), the Catholic Church is another. The other day Matteo Salvini* rightly noted this in the polemics he had with Monsignor Galantino. Plus, the very caustic interview with Giovanni Sartori – the king of political analysts – helped clarify it all:

“To me, this Vatican that utters such nonsense is a disaster. They aren’t interested at all in the real facts and focus on very petty things”. [Note: Sartori also declared, “Galantino? To me, he seems… demented.”]

Sartori has always torn Italian politics to shreds, but to the Bergoglio Party he says: “Let me do the work of the political analyst – you attend to the things priests attend to”.
What would those “real facts” be that the priests should be attending to? Sartori is merciless:

“for two years” – he says – those in Bergoglio’s Church haven’t said a word about the extermination of Christians, the slaughter of Catholics in Africa and the rest of the world, along with the continuous persecution of the Kurds. They should focus on these issues and leave alone the things that are not of their competence”.

It’s true that there are some shocking cases of Christians condemned to death for the faith – like Asia Bibi or Meriem – whom Bergoglio has always refused to mention.

But on the overall issue of the slaughter of Christians he has spoken several times. Yet, he has always done so, very late, in a generic way, without naming the causes or condemning the torturers and even – which is worse – delegitimizing the possibility of interventions by “international police” to protect the populations threatened by massacres (interventions that were desperately asked for by the bishops of those places).
When Bergoglio really cares about something he speaks of it in an earnest, vigorous way, continuously – even harshly. For example, on immigration [he says] that we – in his view – ought to welcome everyone en bloc, without saying a word – paying the costs of it.
Nothing of this sort has been seen in defense of the massacred Christians. For that matter, he has never skimped on words of esteem for the Islamic world, even going as far as pronouncing ecumenical concepts of dubious orthodoxy.
The tardy and generic words spent on the persecuted Christian communities are not in the least comparable to the care he has lavished – for example – on ecology. He wrote an encyclical to defend the survival of “algae, worms, small insects and reptiles” but for the persecuted Christians – nothing. He declared the 1st of September a world-day of prayer for the ecosystem, but for the massacred Christians – nothing (and they are the most persecuted human-group on the planet).
Obviously the ecological encyclical wasn’t only about worms and reptiles, but also thundered against the use of plastic cups and air-conditioners (which, however, is used in Santa Marta). By contrast, he has never hurled any thunder and bolts of lightning at the butchers of Christians.
Why does Bergoglio’s Party intervene in a hard-hitting way against Italian politicians, but not against the Islamic or Communist regimes where Christians are on the cross?
“The truth is that’s it’s easier (more comfortable) to shoot at politicians than defend Christians”, thunders Sartori who says of Bergoglio that “he is a cunning Argentinean and should have other immense questions on which to concentrate”.
Indeed, Sartori poses dramatic questions to the Vatican: “Is it more important to speak about the harem of parties, of the government and Parliament or of the religious wars spreading like wildfire all over planet Earth?”
For the Catholic Church it is more important to attend to Her persecuted [children]. Yet for the Bergoglio Party this seems not to be the case. And this – the political analyst continues – exposes “the Church, which is being made to look bad”.
The Bergoglio Party (which doesn’t care for faith and doctrine) is concentrated on politics – but not only Italian politics. They want to build for Bergoglio a sort of world political leadership of the leftist no-global ecologist type, as the survivors of the Italian Left keep saying (most of all, Bertinotti**, a fan of Bergoglio).
This is the reason for the rehabilitation and glorification in Rome of the old, disastrous Liberation Theology which John Paul II and Benedict XVI had rightly condemned.
However, the event that clarified this project the most – anticipated in 2014 by the meeting in the Vatican with the no-global movements (even the Leoncavallo Social Center ***was present) – was Bergoglio’s recent trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay.
Sandro Magister noted that on this trip “Francis didn’t hide his sympathy for the populist presidents of the first two countries, whereas with the third, he showed coldness, by even rebuking him publically for a crime that he had never committed, resoundingly misinterpreted by the Pope”.
For that matter, the emblematic image of that trip was the “Hammer and Sickle” (with a crucifix attached to it) which Bergoglio not only accepted as a gift from Morales (bringing it back to the Vatican with him), but – in its reproduction on the medallion – he even kept it around his neck to be seen by the world-wide media. Further, also round his neck – he kept the traditional Bolivian container for coca-leaves – another gift from Morales. Things never seen before.

Go here to read the rest.  Pope Francis is a very political pope and he has been eager to enlist the Church in various leftist causes.  He is not the first pope to use his office for political ends unrelated to the Faith, but it is a bad tradition and detracts from the essential mission of the Church:  to bring to all men the Gospel of Christ.
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Don L
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 4:30am

Saying to self; respect the office, respect the office, respect the office…..

Seriously, does left-wing politics, economics, junk science, with a spiritual word or two attached to it, become faith and morals?

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 4:40am

Thanks Don for bringing this insightful and truthful article to our attention. Antonio Socci certainly put his finger on who Pope Francis really is: a left wing politician. He uses his office as a platform to promote his populist political concerns which are mainly solutions to non-existent problems or false solutions to existent ones. But if that weren’t enough he has forsaken his spiritual duties as Pope of the Catholic Church when these duties are needed more than ever. In fact, he goes even further by making fun of those Catholics who take their faith seriously. Pope Francis’ shameful behavior is a disgrace to his office. May God have mercy on his soul.

Father of seven
Father of seven
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 4:49am

I can tell you what Francis is not. He is not a father. He completely misses the fatherhood of God. He would rather be the cool uncle or family friend. He’s even failing at that. He actually told muslim immigrants to look to their own “faith traditions” when they arrived in Italy. Did he mean rum, sodomy and the lash, or just the latter two? When the Yazidi people were stranded on a mountain top and there was a call for the West/America to do something, he famously said that violence never conquers violence. He said this, of course, behind thick Vatican walls and protected by armed Swiss guards. I could go on. He is a disaster. I will continue to pray for him.

Luis
Luis
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 8:53am

Father of seven: “He is a disaster”…
As much as a disaster that he appears to be, I am more concerned by the members of the College of Cardinals who chose him. It can only get worse with his appointments…..

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 11:33am

There is “violence”, the breaking of law and order, and there is “armed force” to protect and defend. That Francis cannot see a difference is debilitating. Peace at any price …

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 12:32pm

Unfortunately, idiotically delving into matters outside their competence has long been a staple of the Church hierarchy including the Holy See. The only difference it seems is the growing silence on matters that actually do fall into their competence.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 1:30pm

I just heard one of the college of cardinals speak – he mentioned being new to the college at the time of the conclave, not having had any previous knowledge of the man, but the name “Bergoglio rising like a mist over the sea” in the morning. Seemed to this Cardinal almost like an imperative from the spirit of God. Although by the cardinals facial expression as he spoke, he is obviously baffled.
This was said in a fe short words just before the Cardinal’s homily at the closing mass of the Courage gathering in Chicago this summer.

Patricia
Patricia
Wednesday, August 26, AD 2015 10:22pm

http://news.yahoo.com/historic-visit-obama-seek-common-cause-pope-161444918–politics.html
.
This utter silence on recent revelations about the marketing of PP, and the lack of teaching morality to so many waiting with baited breath for word on right and wrong, gives CS Lewis ‘cageful’ enhancement. Fear this visit will not help people grow in understanding the Word of God.

cpola
cpola
Thursday, August 27, AD 2015 3:32am

As St. Thomas Aquinas says (Summa Theologica – 2nd part of 2nd part – question 33 – article 4),
“If the faith is in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public.”
.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3033.htm#article1
.
But with respect of course

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Thursday, August 27, AD 2015 8:02am

I feel sorry for Pope Francis

D Black
D Black
Thursday, August 27, AD 2015 1:18pm

“As much as a disaster that he appears to be, I am more concerned by the members of the College of Cardinals who chose him. It can only get worse with his appointments”.

Look for heretic Blase Cupich, Francis’ favorite American bishop, to be front and center at the Synod of the Family in September and look for him to be pushed hard as the first American pope in history. THEN, we will all see a pope 100 times worse than the disaster who currently occupies the Seat of Peter.

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