On a daily basis, when in the Vatican, Popes have said their morning Mass. It was done in the beautiful little chapel in the papal apartment. If there was a homily to those staff and guests admitted it was certainly not published. With Francis all that has changed. His says Mass daily at the chapel in the Santa Marta residence, where he lives at a greater cost and security risk than in the existing papal apartment.
It seems that the Vatican has been taken over by a communication cabal that can only be compared to the White House or George Orwell's "1984", none of them are much different. They control the message and ensure that his image and his words are daily before us.
The people in communications, and I include in this the public figures as well, are near incompetant. As an example, the Pope did not say that "all dogs go to heaven" but you wouldn't know it. Yet, they sit back while his actual words (whatever they were) are distorted and manipulated. Come out and state that it is not true!
They have, Lombardi, Rosica and others, done a disservice to a Pope that may not know any better, that may be a simpleton in the ways of the world and media and communication and they have done a disservice to the Church, to you and me, and Our Lord. They treat us like fools and yet, we can see through everything that they do. We are not the fools.
On December 15, Pope Francis chose as his homiletical them that "rigidity is a sign of a weak heart." He then chose to once again degrade and insult those who try to respect the discipline of the Church to help them live their life in an ordered manner that will aid their personal devotion and bring them closer to God. In the past, he has called these same Catholics, "neo-Pelagians."
He ends his homily with "Never to condemn, never to condemn. If you wanted to condemn, you condemn yourself."
Far be it from me to accuse the Holy Father of anything, most of all being a hypocrite but did he not "condemn" and thus condemn himself. He is not speaking historically of the Pharisees, he is speaking in the here and now. He just condemned those who follow the laws of the Church and life of having a "weak heart" and a "hypocritical heart" and that we are nothing more than "weathervanes?" -- "all of them, weathervanes without consistency." Then he said, if you condemn, you condemn yourself.
What Pope speaks like this?
He uses the Holy Communion fast as an example and thanks Venerable Pius XII for reforming it. What he does not say is that he reformed it from midnight to three hours and then says that some called him a "heretic" for doing it. This was not true, the question was studied for years and there was universal support and acceptance. The Pope then adds that he went to confession because he swallowed a drop of water during the brushing of his teeth.
Either Pope Francis has a faulty memory after these many years or he was incorrectly taught by his parents, teachers or priests. Given his age, he was clearly referring to the midnight fast and water was always permitted. The Pope is mistaken and is inaccurate in his homiletical statement.
Who could have imagined a Pope issuing daily homilies of insult and ridicule to Catholics -- as if, those who accept a fast or try to live by the faith are nothing more than pharisees or pelagians that count their rosary beads. They send him what we've always known to be a "spiritual bouquet" and he sends them an insult.
When Francis emerged on the loggia without the mozetta we knew something was amiss. The next day when he refused to bless the assembled journalists because he respected their "consciences" he insulted them -- they deserved, and needed a blessing, whether they were Catholic or not! A week later when he washed the feet of a Muslim and women he betrayed liturgical law -- and we are pharisees for pointing it out. Truly, if he wishes to give an example of charity to us by washing someones feet, there are 364 days of the year to do it, Holy Thursday is not it!
We have seen his communications experts create an image of humility that never existed before. This is a betrayal of the truth. We will find many pictures of Benedict XVI or St. John Paul II taking a bus, or clasping the head of a suffering soul. It is a false humility to spin that Jorge Bergoglio is the first humble man to be the Bishop of Rome and in fact, it is a lie, an evil, deceitful spiteful lie. Are you aware that it costs more to keep him in the Hotel Santa Marta than the papal apartment? Would that money not be better spent on the poor?
Between those days above and today we have many other instances from the inanity of "who am I too judge" to "atheists go to heaven" to "we're all going to meet there someday" during a recent papal audience.
Francis is careless in his speech. He is locked into a time-warp of his Jesuitical training and 1970's ideology. His worldview and Catholic worldview is that born out of his Argentinean experience -- hardly something to be emulated, a collapsing Church, debased liturgy and empty seminaries.
His treatment of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate is a scandal unto itself.
His invitation of an imam to pray in the Vatican was an abomination and his praying in a mosque was an act with even yet, unknown repercussions. His silence in the face of the imprisonment of Asia Bibi or the missing Christian girls in Nigeria is deafening.
In the Old Testament, Israel was punished for its transgressions. We are Israel and we are getting what we deserve.
May our forty years of wandering be over soon.
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| Unless of coursed you're the Pope himself! |