"I am Peter. God gave me, and nobody else, the responsibility to govern His Church and foster her unity. I have vowed to do so, and I will fulfill it to the best of my ability." That is the main thrust of the Papal letter to the bishops, an "encyclical" in the etymological sense of the word, that is, a circular personal letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church.
"I believe that I set forth clearly the priorities of my pontificate in the addresses which I gave at its beginning. Everything that I said then continues unchanged as my plan of action."
In that plan of action, the "first priority for the Successor of Peter was laid down by the Lord in the Upper Room in the clearest of terms: 'You… strengthen your brothers' (Lk 22:32)". Strengthen, certainly, but for what? To fulfill the mission of the Church, salus animarum, which includes struggling against the real problem of our time.
"The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects." And he clarifies it: "Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses 'to the end' (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."
To the end, to the end... "Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity..." And Peter is willing to suffer, to suffer abuse even from Catholics: "even Catholics who... thought they had to attack me with open hostility". He does not have to add explicitly, but it should be clear: "even from many of you, brother Bishops, to whom I adress this letter". The Catholics who offend him have lost track of what the priority of the Church is.
Their hostility, their hatred, is the same hatred that the world has always reserved for Christ and His followers. Yes, you world leaders, as well as you pseudo-Progressive Catholics, ambassadors of the world in the Church, whom do you serve when you hate? The Church? Why do you feel the need to hate? The world, following its prince, needs "to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."
The Pope's message is clear: "this 'biting and devouring' also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom". Freedom in the Church must be a freedom subjected to the "supreme priority, which is love". Liberty not for its own sake (Liberalism), but always obedient to Christ through His Church, and though the only true "great defender" of all its Councils, the Pope: "Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life."
Amen.
