THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT THE BERGOGLIO PARTY
Antonio Socci
‘Libero’
August 23rd 2015
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| [Bp. Nunzio Galantino, appointed Secretary-General of the Italian Bishops' Conference by the Pope and new laughingstock of Italian political and ecclesial life] |
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.
In addition, on that trip “ Pope Bergoglio’s political manifesto “ was made plain. As Magister reported, it happened with his discourse at Santa Cruz “to ‘the no-global popular movements’ of Latin America and the rest of the world, convoked by him for the second time in less than a year; in both cases with the “coca-cultivator” President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, in the first row”.
The heart of Bergoglio’s “manifesto” was well explained by one of his confreres, the Jesuit Father, James V. Schall, former professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington: “As far as I can judge, in this peculiar discourse we find hardly any traces of the Christian attention for personal virtue, salvation, sin, sacrifice, suffering, repentance and eternal life - nor for a perennial valley of tears. Sins and evils are transformed into social or ecological questions which require political and structural remedies”.
The message arrived clearly and loudly. On March 13th - the anti-capitalist day - writes Magister – “Leonardo Boff, theologian of Liberation Theology, converted to the religion of Mother Earth, the Italian Gianni Vattimo, philosopher of “Il Pensiero Debole” [‘Weak Thought’ his post-modernist philosophical concept] and the Argentinean Marcelo Sànchez Sorondo, Archbishop Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Social Sciences and key advisor to Pope Bergoglio, all had something to say. To great applause and with a satisfied Sànchez Sorondo by his side, Vattimo pleaded the cause of a new international “papist “communism with Pope Francis as its undisputed leader”.
Yet, more than Communist, Bergoglio is a Peronist, with the theological myth of the people, and that “cunning” which lead him to hurl accusations at capitalism and high finance, although – note well – without ever attacking anyone precisely, not the International Monetary Fund, nor the Central Bank of Europe or the United States.
Rather, Obama is Bergoglio’s biggest fan and sponsor and the latter avoids with great care any attack (“Who am I to judge?”) on the fanatic secularist policies of Obama, who, on matters concerning life, the family or gender is openly opposed to the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless – as I said – the Bergoglio Party is one thing, the Catholic Church is another. Are they exact opposites?
In fact, Bergoglio hits hard on the points of the faith where there is rebirth ... . Further, with the Synod, he has placed a time-bomb under the doctrinal cathedral of Catholicism.
He even declared to Scalfari that “there is no Catholic God”. There is Bergoglio. And his Party.
_____ Translator's Notes:
*Matteo Salvini – Leader of the Lega Nord (The Northern League) Political Party, very critical and outspoken about the present influx of immigrants in Italy. He and Monsignor Galantino , were at loggerheads last week when Galantino , Secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, on the issue of clandestine immigrants, denounced the politicians, calling them “cheap salesmen, who in order to gain votes say the stupidest things.” Even the Interior Minister of the Center-Left Government, Angelino Alfano, said that Galantino's words were completely our of order: "To the Italian Church, we show respect, and we ask for respect in return."
** Fausto Bertinotti – former leader of the Italian Communist Party
***Social Center Leoncavallo: Social centers in Italy continue to be centers of political/social dissent.
[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]
