Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 12:14pm

PopeWatch: Division

Mike Lewis deplores at America, the Jesuit rag not the country, the dvisions caused by the critics of Pope Francis:

My mother, who never read anything Pope Francis actually wrote, became convinced he was a heretic by her friends at church, members of her Catholic book club and through watching “The World Over Live,” a weekly talk show on EWTN hosted by Raymond Arroyo, which often features outspoken papal critics

Early in Francis’ papacy, we argued about him frequently. Prior to each of the two sessions of the Synod on the Family, for example, she repeated the common claim among Francis’ critics that the synods were “rigged” and that they were little more than vehicles for predetermined changes to doctrine. Similarly, whenever a bishop she deemed to be moderate or progressive was appointed to lead a U.S. diocese, she would insist—relying on commentary she read in Catholic media—that these decisions were further proof that Pope Francis was deliberately trying to destroy the church. Any attempt I made to clarify or correct this narrative was immediately shut down.

At a certain point, I realized that I would never persuade her, and I tried to avoid the subject rather than create more division. When she became sick, I raised the subject a few more times, but it was clear that her views had become entrenched. She even had a coffee mug with the word “Viganò” written on it in capital letters. And every conversation we had about religion drifted into an argument about Pope Francis. Being unable to talk about God with the person who gave me my faith as she lay dying was agonizing.

My experience is not unique. This division in the church is a tragic situation that is harming families and communities of faith. It is totally opposed to the Gospel and to Pope Francis’ message. As the pope said in his homily on June 29, “There are always those who destroy unity and stifle prophecy.” I experienced this division in a very personal way. The impact of the public defiance against the pope is not theoretical; it is doing real damage to the body of Christ. Which leaders among us will respond to the urgent need for action to promote unity in the church?

Certainly, there are difficult disagreements to resolve, and not every division will be healed on this side of heaven. But we cannot lose sight of who we are as Catholic Christians. By our baptism, we are united as brothers and sisters with Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. Jesus entrusted the care of his sheep to Peter and his successors. The church teaches that Pope Francis is the visible foundation of communion for all the faithful, and the healing of these wounds can only begin in unity with him.

Go here to read the rest.  Maybe curing wounds might begin with the shepherd not insulting the sheep by his words and actions but PopeWatch doubtless is being, in the words of the Pope, a self-absorbed promethean neopelagian.

 

 

94. This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.

Shooting the messengers is a time honored bad way of dealing with bad news, and it is one constantly practiced in this pontificate.

 

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Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 3:49am

Agree. For the time being our real Pope, Archbishop Vigano, should be the source of true Catholic thought. Please read his latest “encyclical”.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/ap-vigano-christ-the-king-has-been-dethroned-not-only-from-society-but-also-from-the-church

MikeS
MikeS
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 5:49am

“The church teaches that Pope Francis is the visible foundation of communion for all the faithful, and the healing of these wounds can only begin in unity with him.”
Why do I suspect he discovered this in 2013?

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 8:11am

Ah, Lewis, the founder of the Papal Gaslight Company.

His conception of the office is positively Mormon, and he gets quite put out when you don’t accept his googy-eyed hyperdulia for the current seat holder.

It’s telling that he patronizingly assumes the hand that rocked his spiritual cradle was led astray, as opposed to coming to her own conclusions based on the pile of elephant crap in the ballroom.
And it’s an even more telling display of the kind of person he is that he uses his mother’s memory for such purposes.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 9:56am

Funny how “division” is always being created by conservatives/traditionalists not letting liberals/modernists have their way.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 12:58pm

“It was also clear to me that Pope Francis’ vision for the faith is precisely the cure for the embattled, embittered and polarized church in the United States.
“Unfortunately, not everyone in the U.S. church agrees.”

OK, I have a lot of problems with a lot of the Pope’s critics. But Lewis really struck out here. I mean, look at the logic of those two sentences. You can’t possibly say, this is something that everyone agrees with, but unfortunately not everyone agrees with it. And clearly that’s not just a bit of bad phrasing on his part. The whole framework of the article is built around it. This reminds me of how Obama was called a uniter, but oversaw a period of increasing division. Actually, it’s worse than that. One could argue that the Obama presidency was divisive in spite of the man, because of the birth of the internet or whatever. But the points where the Catholic Church is seeing division are exactly the points where the Pope is acting. You could say the Pope is right and people are being divisive, or the Pope is progressive and people are being divisive, but you can’t say the pope is the cure for division and people are being divisive.

Rudolph Harrier
Rudolph Harrier
Friday, August 14, AD 2020 1:03pm

When a country invades another without provocation, it is the invaded nation that starts the war. The invaders are not looking for conflict: they would be perfectly content to take over without having to fight for it.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Saturday, August 15, AD 2020 8:22am

Another stiflingly condescending conoscienti who is blinded even to his own mother’s considered belief about the present sad reality. And he shows her no respect for her obviously benighted beliefs. What a sad and shameless tomfoolery, and an implicit accusation, that some nameless responsible parties prevented him from “talking about God” with his dying mother because she saw through Pope Francis and he cannot.

It never occurred to him he could’ve ceased his argumentative blather at this previous time of parting and spent the time praying the Rosary with her, saying prayers, perhaps singing softly some great traditional Catholic songs.

Arrghh, the “woke” conoscienti! Libera nos, Domine!

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Saturday, August 15, AD 2020 8:25am

His mother deserved better than this self-absorbed son.

Donald Link
Donald Link
Sunday, August 16, AD 2020 11:15am

If you look at the history of the papacy from the distance of time, you will note that we have had quite a variety in both virtue and fault. The Church has, and will in the future, survive because we have the word of our Founder on the subject. Am I concerned about immediate consequences? Yes, of course. But I am also comforted when I see a number of faithful and hard working members in both pew and pulpit. Most who give credence to America already are in a certain mind set and are unlikely to change.

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