Dale Price at Dyspeptic mutterings has an interesting series in which he discusses the problems he has with Pope Francis. The problems PopeWatch believes boil down to a concern that Pope Francis may turn out to be an advocate of Liberal Christianity, that place where Christianity goes to die:
He was a beloved itinerant shepherd who lived simply, residing in a single spartan room when he wasn’t visiting the flock. Known for his humility and down-to-earth speaking style, he was deeply beloved by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. He emphasized ecumenism to an unprecedented degree, and believed that the Second Vatican Council was the watershed event in Catholic history. He encouraged modern biblical study, presenting historical-critical hypotheses from the pulpit, chided Catholics who “looked backward” to older ways, and urged the embrace of dynamic change.
His name was Kenneth Untener, and he was the bishop of Saginaw from 1980 until his death in 2004. The parishes in his domain were my first experience with progressive Catholicism, and they stirred and shaped my–there is no other word for it–hostility to the entire progressive religious project. Now, let me clarify one thing here: there is a distinction between religious progressivism and the political version. For my part, I think one can be a devout Catholic and support what are generally regarded as progressive political policies. The late, great Robert Casey, Sr. of Pennsylvania (but not his wayward, sail-trimming fraud of a son) embodied this possibility–and did so well. But, as with Catholics who align toward the right side of the spectrum, if you’re doing your faith right, you will inevitably conflict with certain political shibboleths of your non-Catholic brothers in arms. Or at least you’d better. And it is clear that getting your hands dirty living and working with the poor, a la Catholic Worker, is wholly, utterly and unimpeachably Catholic.
These are to be distinguished from religious progressivism, which is diagnosed comprehensively here. It is always and everywhere bad news. Which is not to say that people who hold modernist views are to be treated like bad news–they shouldn’t. But you have your work cut out, no question. The contemporary flavor of modernism is fond of emotivism and is less susceptible to, or even interested in, logical argument. And if they’re in power, buckle up and heads to the storm.
Anyway, back to the narrative:
The servant-leader was determined to reshape the Faith in his own image, and to a horrible extent, he succeeded. An avatar of the Spirit of Vatican II, he used it to oppose the Letter, shutting down the diaconate program immediately upon being appointed. That way, he could appoint female parish administrators, which he did in truckload lots. Which he would–conveniently?–also need, given that he inspired very few men to follow in his priestly footsteps.
You could find an official liturgical offering which referred to God as “she” in Saginaw, but no extraordinary form Mass. For all the celebration of the Diocese’s genuine ethnic diversity, progressive imperatives had a way of steamrolling organic ethnic expressions of faith and shutting down the “dialogue” once they had their way. For modernists, dialogue is simply a weapon in the struggle–and once the end is reached, the ratchet sets for all eternity. Thank you, please move along. If you’re curious, you can find more examples of tender Saginaw pastoral care in the comments. Tolerance for everything save Catholic orthodoxy is the end result. Note also that my experience was of four separate parishes scattered across fifty miles–no isolated St. Joan’s loony bin skewing the sample here.
And the liturgies…God have mercy. Walking out of Mass growling is not good for me. I simply won’t do it again. Which is not to say the Diocese lacked good features: one of the finest priests I have ever met was a priest in my hometown—a genuine, faithful servant glad to help his flock at all hours, but not one to water down the harder stuff. If he had been the norm, the fruit of the Great Leap Forward…but he was not. There were and are people who admired Bishop Untener and his vision. For me, his vision is one that fills me with dread and anger, and, on a practical level, simply bleeds out even where it is embraced in full–e.g., without those nasty old celibates in Rome mucking things up.
More to the point, at least as embraced and lived in the West, it is a narrow vision that appeals only to the comfortably left-of-center folks with solid portfolios and nice neighborhoods. Far from charging up the laity and sending them into the world, it instead clericalized a select militia. Very select, alas, as it consists only of those layfolk able to attend the requisite workshops and obtain the necessary ministry certifications, giving them the secret handshake and passwords to enter the “real” church–parish administration, preaching from the pulpit and leading communion services. Far from going out to sanctify the world, the laity took chancery and parish office jobs instead.
I suppose it would be one thing if it worked–if it pulled people in and sanctified the world, inspired vocations. It didn’t. The Diocese has contracted by 32 percent since 1988. Can you lay all of that at the feet of the late Bishop? Times change, the economy greatly changes as manufacturing collapses and people move away–or at least their kids seek greener pastures (raises hand). I get that, so no, of course not–it’s hardly all his fault. But apparently the New Thing didn’t draw in new people, either. There’s still a large pool of people to be evangelized, right? Plenty of poor and dislocated folks out in both urban and rural areas in desperate need of both assistance and the Gospel. If the disaffected Catholics were anywhere, they were flocking to your local evangelical churches, which typically has a hefty leaven of ex-Catholics.
Perhaps it’s simply that the appeal of the trendier aspects of the historical-critical method and a transgender divinity have grown more selective.
In the main, though, if you want a poor church for the poor, a religion that makes middle class Western religious progressives comfortable is not going to work. Ultimately, when faced with a choice, the poor, the desperate, the lost and the lonely will shun religions of trendy ambiguity in favor of those with solid answers.
2. The Pope.
So when I hear the Pope praised for the same things the late ordinary of Saginaw was lauded for, I mentally crouch into a fighting stance. Am I saying the Bishop of Rome is just like the late Bishop of Saginaw? No, but there is much more overlap than I am comfortable with. Which is why my spiritual weather forecast is reading “cloudy with a chance of showers” right now.
Go here to read the rest. PopeWatch believes that in the informal statements of the Pope there is cause for concern. However there is a fair amount of contrary evidence also, including the Pope consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Pope’s very strong statements regarding abortion and the recent reaffirmation of traditional Catholic teaching on divorce and remarriage and the reception of communion. The main reason for the existence of PopeWatch is to look at developments of the pontificate of Pope Francis frequently and to attempt to discern where Pope Francis wishes to lead the Church. PopeWatch would have been unnecessary in the prior two pontificates, but it is necessary now since, unlike Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, Pope Francis is given to making remarks that are by no means clear, as demonstrated by the amount of time explaining them that occurs on Saint Blog’s.
A quibble about these remarks: a social democratic or syndicalist bias is congruent with the orthodox Catholic faith. With regard to contemporary ‘progressives’, that sort of thing is just not where their proverbial g-spots are. Subcultural affiliations, consumer tastes, cues and idioms, social and cultural issues, occupational sectors, and social class all matter a great deal more in differentiating ‘us’ and ‘them’. Even with regard to social democratic and syndicalist measures, contemporary progressives are reliable advocates for bureaucracies of helping and caring and rather less reliable advocates of the economic welfare of impecunious wage earners. You can be a loyal Catholic and be the sort of welfare-labor Democrat common in 1948, but you cannot be the latter and be a contemporary ‘progressive’ because you will advocate too many things that are deal-breakers for contemporary ‘progressives’.
The problem with the Commonweal crowd and the Sojourners crowd and the ordinary run of mainline clergy, dissenting Catholic priests, and the church-o-cracy in all denominations is that they are contemporary progressives who speak intermittently in a Christian idiom.
The problem with many peace-and-justice Catholics is that they are so fanatical on the subject of certain political questions that they confound their sometime adversaries with their real antagonists.
In short, they’re Liberals first, and foremost, and christians number ten or further down the list.
[…] CH Crd. Pell Slams S. S. P. X Bp. Fellay’s Attack on Pope – Gerard O’Connell PopeWatch: Liberal Christianity – Donald R. McClarey JD, TACatholic Pope Francis: “Christian families are Missionary […]
“For my part, I think one can be a devout Catholic and support what are generally regarded as progressive political policies.”
Really? What exactly are Progressives progressing towards? The goal – just like the phrase “I have a right to choose” – is unstated. Do progressives in their hubris think that by their good works they can establish a man-made kingdom of God on Earth by government taxation of those who work to benefit those who refuse to? That makes the latter addicted to the teat of the public treasury, forever dependent on Caesar instead of on God.
2nd Thessalonians 3:10 states:
“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.”
BTW, In John chapter 6, after Jesus fed the multitude with the loaves and fishes, He and the disciples went around the lake to the other side, and the crowd, awakening in the morning, found Him gone and sought after Him. When they caught up with Him, “…they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.'” (Verses 25-27)
The crowd did NOT get a second free handout. It ain’t about filling empty bellies. It’s about conversion and repentance. As 2nd Chronicles 7:14 says:
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
What the poor to get better? Stop the sin!
—–
No more liberalism. No more progressivism.
Sorry you feel that way, Paul, but you’ll never convince me Bob Casey Sr. was a bad Catholic. And while Catholic social teaching has been greatly misused and misrepresented by those who worship the State, it is impossible to square genuine CST with libertarianism.
I remember well Bp Untener, and his leadership and “teaching” was the greatest evidence, as I was recently trying to relate to someone else, of the discontinuity of Vatican II (“V2″) with the previous Church we had.
Let’s just look at Sacro. Conc (On the Liturgy): no where was the Traditional Latin Mass abolished in the text of SC or any other V2 document—yet it was forbidden by V2! Even by its own document, SC contradicts V2: the liturgy is to remain normatively Latin (no. 36), Gregorian chant is the proper musical form (no. 116), and the pipe organ is the normative liturgical instrument (no. 120). Is that the way the liturgy is celebrated in your parish each Sunday? If so, they must be “radical traditionalists?”
The theological “experts” who advised the bishops and cardinals —Congar, Rahner, Kung, Chenu, others—quickly formed their own clandestine operations with deliberate efforts, well-documented now in their own personal diaries, to break with “ultramontanism” and in fact to contest the authority of the pope and place all authority in “a council of bishops” (see deMattei, The 2nd Vatican Council, an Unwritten Story).
Card. Suenens exulted that V2 had become “1789 in the Church”, a new French Revolution and a break with the past. Even then-Cardinal Ratzinger commented in 1988: “The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as part of the entire living tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of super dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest. ” (1988 address. Chilean Episcopal Conference).
Yves Congar, one of the V2 periti, remarked with satisfaction that “The Church has had, peacefully, its October revolution.” Schillebeeckx admitted, “We have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.” Congar also affirmed that Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty is contrary to the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, saying: “It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus if 1864 said…”
After decades of this nonsense, and the new Pope claiming “we have to put into effect V2”, forget it for me. The only ones that are making sense and that have a consistently harmonious and undemagogued liturgy are the trad groups, curious as they are: but Untenauer and a certain one-time bishop of Phoenix who was his twin separated at birth have done it for me and a good part of my family.
Many of Dale’s commenters urge patience; reading Francis through Bergoglio, so to speak. A hermeneutic of biography?
For those who already interpret Vatican II as discontinuous with the whole Catholic Tradition, I can only say that this flies in the face of the actual Documents of Vatican II, the Popes since Vatican II, the Extraordinary Synod of 1985 (precisely on the authoritative interpretation of Vatican II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which both quotes Vatican II and interprets it in its Teaching). If an interpretation of rupture were accurate the promises of Christ of the Spirit Paraclete as well as His promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church built on Peter would be empty and futile.
It is important not to confuse the Extradordinar Form (TLM) with other issues of so called traditionalists groups
As for the above article concerning Pope Francis as a so called progressive,nthe author actually was stating Pope Francis is a “”Modernist”” (as described by the Magisterium of Saint Pope Pius X). Modernism states that we take Catholic Teaching, empty it of content so as to make the teaching in line with “modern thinking”
This did not take place in Vatican II, in any magisterial teachings of the popes since Vatican II and has not happened in any preaching/teaching of Pope Francis
Despite all signs pointing otherwise some still are afraid of this Pope. I find no substantial basis for this anxiety and fear
It is not fear of the Pope that motivates many of us, but fear of his exceptionally poorly worded interviews and other public comments. Particularly how they are read and used by others. For example:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/inside-higher-ed-catholic-colleges-accused-of-ignoring-the-pope/2008498.article
Being in a public institution myself, these are stormy times added to by Pope Francis’s lack of foresight. But it is early in this pontificate and I suspect there has already been a fair amount of fraternal correction of the Pope guided by the Holy Spirit.
Fair enough Philip. I had pointed out In a response sometime ago, that it was interesting that there have been no interviews since his meeting with the council of 8 cardinals. I still find this fact interesting. As Cardinal Brogoglio, he did not like interviews. That tells me that he lacked experience in giving interviews. To be honest I felt that the “Jesuit interview” was the best and more insightful into ‘the man’.
Steve Phoenix
Not only Cardinal Yves Congar, but Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (as he then was) called Gadium et Spes a counter-Syllabus.
“If one is looking for a global diagnosis of the text [of Gaudium et spes], one could say that it (along with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter-Syllabus …. the text [of Gaudium et spes] plays the role of a counter-Syllabus to the extent that it represents an attempt to officially reconcile the Church with the world as it had become after 1789.” Here is the original French text: «Gaudium et Spes est (en liaison avec les textes sur la liberté religieuse et sur les religions du monde) une révision du Syllabus de Pie IX, une sorte de contre-Syllabus. […] Ce texte joue le rôle d’un contre-Syllabus dans la mesure où il représente une tentative pour une réconciliation officielle de l’Église avec le monde tel qu’il était devenu depuis 1789. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Les Principes de la théologie catholique) »
I believe the attempts to suggest a discontinuity between Pope Francis and Benedict XVI are misconceived
Well thanks be to God that you are hear to clarify the pope’s words for us, given your deep insight into his inner voice and heart. Man, I thought I was lost for a moment.
Actually, Michael P-S, I was asserting the discontinuity between the Church prior to V2 and the church after. Ratzinger in his own memoirs recounts how disconcerted he was by news from the V2 newly formed bureaucracies, especially the Consilium on the Liturgy, radically altered what many of the Council Fathers thought they were voting for at V2. Ratzinger spent much of his episcopate “walking back” V2 (just one example: most notably the sacrmental words of institution (“For you and for all” vs. “For you and for many” – If ever there was a prima facie evidence of a rupture, a break with the past just acknowledge that change, not done by the V2 congregation, but by Cicognani’s shadow committee which operated form 1964 to 1969. But for those of you who care to know the truth (other than Botolph,who apparently has a programmed function key to smear people like me as “radicals”, and prefers to remain in the dark), just read Romano Amerio’s Iota Unum, give Roberto de Mattei (The 2nd Vatican Council: an Unwritten Story) at least a reading (he corroborates Amerio’s eyewitness account point-by-point, and finally read Mark Fellows’ Twilight at Fatima, all voluminously researched works with incontrovertible evidence that something went off the rails at V2 (as if you cant tell the tree by its fruits).
er. correction. I meant “Ratzinger spent much of his pontificate walking back” V2 (not “episcopate”).