A RORATE Editorial Note: Kinship

Jesus Christ: the “Great Absence” in today’s Church

 “Today, Pastors and the entire people of God need to return to a correct order of priorities: to begin with, by shouting from the rooftops the first and most important of these priorities: the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.”

by Gianfranco Amato

President, Jurists for Life

La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana

August 21, 2020

Every day, it seems like ‘a great absence’ is making itself felt inside the Church: Our Lord Jesus Christ. We talk about everything except Him. In official discourses, prolusions, interventions and now even in documents, every reference to the Son of God seems to have disappeared. The idea that there can be a Christianity without Christ is making increasing headway in a creeping manner. For that matter “the Powers that be” are fond of a religion that attends to the poor, the needy, the diverse, immigrants, social justice, respect for the environment and peace, but which eclipses the troublesome figure of Christ – the only Truth – with all the ensuing weaponry of the precepts, dogmas, principles values and ideals of this Truth.  This is why in the ecclesiastical world we keep hearing authoritative voices going on about everything except the Unicum necessarium . But wasn’t it the mission of the Church to “proclaim the Kingdom of God and Christ and establish it among the peoples”  as it would seem No. 565 of the Catechism indicates?

A RORATE Editorial: Francis Must Go

In the two years that led to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI from the papacy, many strange things happened: leaks, a Secretary of State (Cardinal Bertone) who seemed intent on making things difficult for the pope, and a crisis that seemingly had left his control. Only seemingly: what was actually happening was that the large group of Cardinals involved in what would become known as the "St-Gallen Mafia" were plotting to force Pope Ratzinger's departure in a see of problems, forcing the election of the "anti-Ratzinger" -- indeed, the anti-Ratzinger they had promoted in the previous conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.

It all went exactly as planned. Benedict XVI became, or was, convinced that he would not be able to fix things and left. And Bergoglio, the Horror, was elected. The Horror was how we characterized the Pontificate that was about to begin, on the very day of Bergoglio's election.

And how we were criticized and vilified for it! In fact, if you go back and read that post by a dear Argentinian friend, that followed on the footsteps of our intense coverage of the Church in Argentina since our founding, you will see that the current Pope is not accused of heresy. Never once! He is not accused of apostasy. We were wrongly charged with all evils, when in fact our concern, that proved absolutely true, regarding this Pope was his mix of the worst moral companions and his utter doctrinal confusion.

Alas, his friends, the same who got him elected, got the best of him. From the very beginning, as the damning written testimony by Archbishop Viganò (at the time, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States) makes clear, Francis used all means, including malice and deception, to help his friends, such as then-Cardinal McCarrick, and also Cardinal Danneels. And he used all means to punish those he saw as his enemies, such as Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Léonard of Brussels, and so many others.

Satanelli Beatification - LA NACIÓN Editorial: Pope Promotes a Political-Ideological Beatification

There were many radical bishops in the wild years following the Second Vatican Council. But Enrique Angelelli, bishop of La Rioja, Argentina, was probably the most radical. He was a Communist in all but name and stridently supported the terrorist organization "Montoneros", the leftist terrorist branch of the Peronist movement. It can be undoubtedly said that the horrid military dictatorship that governed Argentina from 1976 until the Falklands War was brought about as a brutal overreaction to the terrorist attacks coordinated by Montoneros in favor of a Socialist-Peronist revolution.

Angelelli was so leftist, so radically leftist and so political, that the shocked practicing faithful of his own diocese used to call him in life "Satanelli". He died in a car accident in 1976. Yet Francis has decided to beatify Satanelli as a "martyr"! (It is all very ironic because, even though it is claimed, now, that Fr. Bergoglio opposed the dictatorship, at the time he was considered an ally of the military, and even close to the most brutal of the Junta's members, Admiral Emilio Massera.)

La Nación, the oldest and most respected daily in Argentina (the only major newspaper that supported the pro-life position in their recent victory against abortion in the national Senate), ran the following editorial on this startling piece of news. La Nación is also, by the way, an ally of Francis, and its Rome correspondent, Elisabetta Piqué, is the journalist who is probably closest to Francis -- so this is obviously not moved by any animus against the Bishop of Rome.

***

LA NACIÓN - EDITORIAL

A Political-Ideological Beatification 

Bishop Angelelli does not, in any way, represent the model of Christian exemplariness that the Church demands to start a canonization procedure

July 30, 2018

Angelelli next to a symbol of violence

On August 4, 1976, Bishop Enrique Angelelli died, after the rollover of the vehicle in which he was travelling in National Route 38, in La Rioja, along with Father Arturo Pinto, who survived. In the report made immediately after, following comprehensive search for evidence -- autopsy, accident expert summary, photos of the place of the accident, and the testimony of Pinto, who alleged memory loss and being in a state of shock -- the procedure was archived under the name "Angelelli, bishop Enrique A. rep./death."

Editorial: WE DESERVE FRANCIS

Rorate Editorial: The Pope in the United States - Ambiguous on what should be clear, clear only on his political priorities

Priorities

Pope Francis' visit has shown us once more that he can be clear and unambiguous on his priorities, and vocal and forthright in saying what he wants to say. He did not hesitate to make direct statements on immigration, on the environment, on the abolition of the death penalty and in praise of religious liberty (that is, religious liberty as understood by the Western secular consensus rather than the defense of the Church's right to proclaim the truth in any society). There was no question left about the importance he placed on these issues. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the importance he accords to the defense of the unborn and of true marriage.

We affirm -- and we are not alone in doing so -- that the entire papal visit to the US and the UN was a series of missed opportunities and a monumental failure to affirm Church teaching precisely where it is under greatest threat from public opinion and secular power. These will come back to haunt the very same Catholics who have tried so hard to justify all of the Pope's omissions in the past week. 

"But he spoke against abortion! He spoke about the right to life! He spoke about the need to defend marriage and the family!" Of course he did. Equally clear is that he treated these issues as having marginal importance. No one can in all honesty point to his brief and often vague reminders on abortion and declare that the defense of the unborn was one of his primary interests during his visit. Even less can it be said that he gave a clear and ringing defense of true marriage as only between a man and a woman. During his main address on the topic of the family -- the address at the "Prayer Vigil for the Festival of Families" in Philadelphia -- the Pope focused on the material needs of families rather than the defense of the very essence and identity of the family. At least the Pope had mentioned the word "abortion" in the course of his visit, but on the defense of true marriage he was never as forthright.

RORATE EDITORIAL: It's time for Catholic prelates to speak as true Catholics

Rosso Fiorentino
The Marriage of the Virgin
Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence

Since the promulgation of Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the definition of State-defined marriage, a growing number of U.S. Catholic prelates have been issuing their own statements about this abominable decision by five justices of the Court (two of whom are baptized Catholics, including the majority opinion's author himself). Some forthrightly condemned the decision's injustice and immorality. Others restated Catholic doctrine clearly, but without the forcefulness clearly warranted by the situation. Others offered decidedly lukewarm, limp-wristed statements that repeated a minimum of orthodox doctrine in as inoffensive and unconvincing a manner as possible, while tacitly accepting elements of the new secular orthodoxy and undermining what resistance towards it is left among Catholics.

The most symbolic statement was that of the new Archbishop of Chicago, Blase J. Cupich, as lukewarm and limp-wristed as can be imagined. Let no one be fooled: behind the façade of equanimity, this statement represents capitulation, pure and simple: 

Editorial Note: They Want to Silence Bloggers as they Silenced Benedict XVI

A Letter from the Editor: The difficulty of making a papal pronouncement post in the Age of Francis

Dear Readers,

Will you allow me, in a very rare event, to share with you a moment of frustration?

EDITORIAL Qaraqosh falls: A greater punishment is ready for the more mighty.

[Update: Urgent appeal from the Chaldean Patriarchate]

God will not except any man's person, neither will he stand in awe of any man's greatness: for he made the little and the great, and he hath equally care of all. But a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty.

(Wisdom, 6:7-9)

August 7, 2014, is a day that will forever live in shame.

Qaraqosh (Bakhdida), the Christian capital of Northern Iraq and of the vast surrounding regions, the largest Christian city in all the country, has fallen. In the night of August 6 to August 7, the Kurdish fighters (the Peshmerga) and Assyrian allies defending it decided they could not assure the safety of its inhabitants, and it became an open city. Tens of thousands of Christians who have lived in the Nineveh Plains since time immemorial are rushing towards Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region.

There has not been an ethno-religious cleansing covering such a vast area in the world (almost all of northern and eastern Syria and western and northwestern Iraq) since at least the Partition of India, nearly 70 years ago. 

Mosul fell almost 60 days ago -- and it is a fact well known in Washington that the current United States administration knew and had the chance to stop  the advance of the Islamic terrorist army long before they reached this  city of 700,000 people, but chose not to.

60 days: yet during this long period, four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, all nations with large Christian majorities at least nominally, could not propose a single resolution creating a safe haven for minorities in Iraq and enforcing its protection. Two of these nations, we must always remember -- the United States and the United Kingdom -- are primarily responsible for the current state of affairs in Iraq. The current abandonment of the Christians of Iraq by the very powers that created this situation is something so monstrous it cannot be measured.

RORATE CÆLI Editorial: Very well, we are "neo-Medievalists"... But could we end the ignorance of the "Middle Ages" anyway?

+ DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO +
AD HONOREM SANCTISSIMÆ ET INDIVIDUÆ TRINITATIS

The supreme indictment came in an article published by "progressive" Catholic periodical "Commonweal". Though it is certainly an honor for us to be placed alongside those mentioned below, it is quite a disparate group:

Editorial: The Sound of Silence

First, they silenced the majority inside the Franciscans of the Immaculate who had done their best for years to apply the Benedictine line of "hermeneutic of continuity". Their Summorum rights were reversed and subjected to an absurd authorization, their seminary shut down, their conservative majority disbanded and muzzled. The books and journals published by them were forbidden to be sold - greatly reducing the reach of the few Italian theologians who had tried to promote a moderately critical reading of Vatican II that was nevertheless respectful of the Holy See.

Then, they came for Mario Palmaro and Alessandro Gnocchi in Radio Maria.

Then, they asked for Roberto de Mattei's head in Radio Maria. In the name of mercy, the message is, "Like it, swallow it – or get out."

Then, they, using the solemn liturgical Tradition of the Church not as an instrument of grace but as a weapon, removed the daily Traditional Mass from a small traditional Catholic college with no explicit justification. Such a liturgical punishment on an entire community is not forthcoming for heterodox deviations in any Catholic college or university.

Then, they silenced Deacon Nick Donnelly, a man whose blog had been founded with the name "Protect the Pope" precisely because the official Catholic news sources did nothing to actually protect the then-Pope's (Benedict XVI) words and reputation. The blog never promoted any heterodox opinion, but the diocese of Lancaster confirmed the silencing decision later.

Then, they warned the Ordinariates of Anglican Use to "exercise vigilance over blogs of their members" - a warning that is quite clearly directed at specific blogs that are too noisy or that openly and prominently promote the Traditional Mass and the hermeneutic of continuity...

These are, of course, just a few examples. How much is happening that we do not and may never know? In many dioceses around the globe, the upside-down disorder of the 1970s is returning with a vengeance; in more than one, a couple that reached our knowledge, seminary rectors or spiritual directors were removed for expressing out loud favorable views of the Traditional Roman Rite.

Are we going to pronounce a philippic against "censorship" and in favor of a supposed "freedom of speech" for ordained ministers or Catholic-owned radio stations? No, we leave that task for those who are terrified of an advance of an "illiberal Catholicism" that is nowhere to be seen, while the real illiberal menace within the Church is clear from the examples above. No, what we would once again wish to point out is the egregious double standard involved in this silencing campaign. Shameless ecclesial administrators, as sycophants in every bureaucracy, try to garner favor by being more radical than their superiors. Meanwhile, the defenders of heterodoxy and moral relativism are, as has been the case since the Council except for very extreme cases, unbothered, or more often than not praised, decorated, or promoted.

We occasionally expressed reservations about some bewildering opinions or actions of the previous pontificate. But nobody can deny that under John Paul II and Benedict XVI we could breathe - much heterodoxy abounded and went unpunished, but wheat and cockle grew freely. 

Now, instead, we are under the worst of both worlds: a newly-founded disorganized Inquisition that burns the wheat in the fields, while cockle grows strong even on the rock. Liberal pseudo-Inquisitors who use the rod to spank the sheep while the beasts feast on the flock. Complete silence is coming, and with it only the howling of the wolves at the darkest hour.

The Mercy Memo: "Like it, swallow it – or get out…”

Radio Maria, a conservative radio station, used to be the most popular Catholic Catholic radio in Italy -- and quite understandably, since it provided an oasis of orthodoxy in a sea of post-conciliar platitudes.

Not anymore: less than 24 hours following the death of Mario Palmaro, whom he had fired last year for an article critical of the current pope (not pronounced on the Radio, but printed in an altogether different medium, the daily Il Foglio), the radio president, Fr. Livio Fanzaga, made the new directives clear: "Like it, swallow it - or get out."

The Mercy of Radio Maria

by Marco Bongi

“Recently it was necessary for me to do 'a cleanup' with the programme-hosts at Radio Maria. I had to make someone get down from their cathedra and sit them at a school-desk…because it must be very clear: like it, swallow it – or get out…”

It is about 9am on Thursday, March 13, 2014. Not even 24 hours have passed since Professor Mario Palmaro’s funeral. With these words, so full of mercy, Father Livio Fanzaga comments on the news of the day, especially about the first anniversary of Pope Francis’ election.

He carries on commenting with a logic all of his own; about the pastoral ineffectiveness of condemnations; about the need to present the beauty of the Christian life without manifesting sharp judgments; about the importance of the pastoral reflection which the Bishops are engaged in concerning matters of the family.

The contrast between the two parts of his talk (which has been already obvious anyway in all occasions [now] with the new direction [of the Radio]) today appears to be particularly strident. A punch in the stomach takes away my serenity for the rest of the day.

I am thinking of the luminous example of Mario Palmaro, about his splendid and courageous Christian figure, about his faithful perseverance right to the end of his earthly existence. I am thinking about some of the things he wrote in his last letter to the editor of “La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana”, when he mentioned that he hadn’t been able to sleep one night towards the end, when he wondered why Catholics were not capable of shouting their indignation from the roof-tops because of the doctrinal drift of contemporary pastors.

Thinking like this – I am almost on the verge of tears.

But then the “affable” voice of Padre Livio continues his tirade. He moves on to comment a recent book written by the first Argentine Bishop of the Bergoglio era:

“Even in Buenos Aires Cardinal Bergoglio didn’t enjoy the sympathy of the traditionalists . And it’s also the same today here in Italy…dear friends…they are the rigorists, the ethicists, the traditionalists, in a nutshell – Christian ideologists. No need to be surprised. Let’s carry on peacefully, following our Pastors…”

Condemnations, judgments, sentences… what are you saying! The prohibition of such stances is only for the enemies of God, not for good Christians at all!

For them Mercy is “like it, swallow it - or get out!”

__________________________

Now, the book mentioned by Fr Fanzaga was the one recently published in Italy by Paolo Rodari, an interview with the Pope's main speechwriter, the president of the Catholic University of Argentina, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández. The book is now becoming famous as an attack on the non-negotiable values clearly defined by Pope Benedict XVI. We see clearly that Archbishop Fernández is filled with resentment. It is transparent that traditional Catholics in Buenos Aires did not have the best relationship with their previous Archbishop, but how can this be blamed on them, when it was the Archbishop who created all obstacles for the Traditional Mass, and even after Summorum did all he could to not truly implement it, as we explained in detail a year ago?

In a diocese, it is the bishop who is in a position of utmost power: when he blocks the legitimate aspirations of some of the most faithful Catholics, what are these supposed to feel?

For some days now, the homily of Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland (Oregon) during the celebration of a Solemn Pontifical Mass has been spreading around - we were waiting to post it alongside a report that alas never came. It is an example of a different kind of attitude. Here, the question is the opposite one: how can traditional Catholics not love a shepherd who, without forgetting his other sheep, shows his love and care for them? A shepherd who understands their legitimate love of the traditional liturgy and catechesis?

This is not to create a false opposition between the Pope and Archbishop Sample, but to show that the resentment clear from Archbishop Fernández's words, mirrored by Father Fanzaga, is explained quite simply by the prior lack of spiritual care for the faithful that was (and still remains) the daily burden of traditional Catholic faithful in one diocese, and is now the daily burden of many elsewhere. And the result is the sound of silence (cf. our editorial).

Love comes first from the top. Love in the universe came first from God, Creator and Redeemer - "who so loved the world..." - not from men. Love in a diocese must first spread down from the bishop. Love in a Catholic medium must first spread down from its director. When love calls, love answers back.

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[Source for the quoted article: Riscossa Cristiana, March 14, 2014 - Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana. Video tip: several readers.]

Editorial Note: After "reactionary", "illiberal"...

Christ is the true Light
[Lucien Simon, Les communiantes (The First Communicants), 1911, Musée d'Orsay]

What will be the next "insult" that this strange breed of Americanist Catholics whose century-old dream has been blending water and oil will choose to depict Traditional Catholics?

"God-fearing"? "Conscientious"? "Principled"?

Traditionalism (that is, Catholicism) is both historical and non-historical. Naturally, a Catholic imbibed in Tradition is often in love with the traditions of his land - but these two cannot be confused. Love for God and love for country are not the same thing, and there should be great suspicion that trying to infuse Catholicism with the values of a specific place and time as a condition for the healthy "development" of the Church might come too close to idolatry for comfort.

In other words, it is understandable that, having had a couple of centuries of reasonably (though not completely) safe exercise of their religion, American Catholics have become joyful or almost proud of the civil liberties recognized to them and the true Church of Christ. This historical contingency does not and must not alter the doctrine of the Church one iota - and much less can it be demanded of American Catholics to fuse into one the humanistic founding principles of their nation, rooted in specific circumstances of time and place, and the eternal principles of the hierarchical Religion established by God Incarnate Himself.

One thousand years henceforth, if this Earth is still in existence, there may or may not be the Constitutional Federal Republic known as the United States. But there will certainly be a Catholic Church. And the circumstances of 1776 or 1787 will be as remote then as those of the age of Charlemagne may seem now. This is why Tradition, while based on a permanent historical foundation (as willed by God Himself when He incarnated in History and established a succession that the word "tradition" itself depicts), is also above and outside History. When entering a Traditional Latin Mass today, a visitor from the age of Charlemagne would encounter many differences, but he would immediately recognize the setting, the sounds, and most of the words. And so, we know it, would one of us in that hypothetical far future, when the Traditional Mass will still be celebrated and cherished, if only by a remnant...

A gracious acceptance of the Law (as long as it does not impinge upon the rights of the Church) and thankfulness for the bounty of the earth do not prevent the Catholic faithful from recognizing that their own land departs significantly from the demands of Catholic doctrine. Instead of silly anecdotes and vignettes, let us look back at the reality lessons of the Martyrs of our Enlightened Age. Enlightenment is a tricky concept: it leads to the guillotine and mass graves, and to the drownings of Nantes, and the Vendean Genocide, and to atheism and all its horrors that deigned to abolish Christ in the name of the workers or convert him into a model for a paganized yet enlightened and superior race, and to the nuclear obliteration of Urakami. It leads to the rivers of blood of unborn children, the victims upon the Enlightened altar of an Enlightened polity. It can be a light of goodness and reason, or simply the deceptive light of Lucifer.

'Even if every nation living in the king's dominions obeys him, each forsaking its ancestral religion to conform to his decrees, I, my sons and my brothers will still follow the covenant of our ancestors. ... We shall not swerve from our own religion either to right or to left.' (I Maccabees ii)

Neither to Right nor to Left: Amen.

NEWS ANALYSIS: Italian politics and the Martini challenge to Pope Benedict XVI

At first sight, the intervention of Cardinal Martini weighing in on the wrong side of some of the most important moral discussions of this age would seem irrelevant. It is true that he was the President (Rettore) of the most prestigious Pontifical University, the Gregoriana; and archbishop of the largest Italian diocese, Milan - from which the world received Popes Ratti and Montini in the 20th century - for more than 20 years. But he has been retired since 2002, and, according to most rumors, he was in an extremely weak position in the last conclave.

Therefore, to understand the relevance of the interview Martini gave to the most important Italian newsweekly, L'Espresso, one needs to consider the current political and religious circumstances in Italy.

First, though formatted to look like a "discussion" between a "man of science" (Doctor Ignazio Marino) and a "man of faith" (Cardinal Martini), it is actually an interview: Marino presents his philosophy and questions Martini, who virtually always agrees with him. It is all about Martini's answers, not about Marino's "parallel ideas".

Second, Ignazio Marino is not just any physician: he is a member of the Democratici di Sinistra-DS (the "Leftist Democrats"), the post-Cold War name of the largest Communist Party in the West, the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI). The Communists are the main leftist components of the "center-left" coalition, the Unione, led by Romano Prodi which has recently won the Italian parliamentary elections. Marino has just been elected to one of the Communist seats in the Senate for the Latium region (Lazio).

So this interview by Marino, who presents himself as a "Catholic" (in the style of the Dossettian "Bologna School" of "Progressive Catholicism"), has the following meaning: the left asks the Church for its opinion, and Martini is chosen as the official spokesman by the Italian "progressive elite", represented by L'Espresso magazine and by the Unione.

It is clear that if Marino were to interview Cardinal Ruini, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, or Pope Benedict, he would not receive the answers he wants. So the progressive manipulation technique involves picking a specific person who will provide the desired answers; the second step is to wait for an official response by the Church, which will probably not come. Then, the preposterous answers provided by the favored churchman become, if not official opinions, at least acceptable positions in the "rainbow of opinions" which shape the Church.

____________________

Now, why is this "semi-official Church position" by a man like Martini so important at this moment? It is far from a coincidence that this interview has been released right after the official results of the elections were announced. Despite the great deterioration in its position in the post-Conciliar age, the Church is still an important player in Italian politics.

A center-left coalition which has barely won its majority in Parliament will force its leader, Romano Prodi, willingly or not, to give in to the most extremist forces inside his coalition if he wishes to remain in power. Ironically, Marino's DS (the "former" Communists) are among the most moderate forces in the Prodi coalition. However, among Italian leftwing politicians, the rage against the Church, against public funds given to the Church, against crucifixes in classrooms and courtrooms, against the Church's opposition to abortion, embryonic manipulation, "fast-track divorce" laws, homosexual civil unions is considerable -- especially as an angry response to a wrong perception of the Church (embodied in its most visible face in Italian politics, Ruini) as the "conservative anchor" of the leaving prime-minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

As prime-minister Rodríguez Zapatero in Spain, Prodi (though in many ways a much more moderate man than the Spaniard) will probably have to feed anti-clericalism to the extremists of his coalition. And this is where Martini's opinions are relevant, and it is why this ecclesiastical has-been is in the cover of this week's L'Espresso.

If the Italian public opinion may be persuaded, by Martini's words and by the official silence from the Vatican and from Ruini regarding those words, that opposition to the Magisterium is an acceptable position for Catholics, then the probable extreme measures which the center-left governing coalition will defend in moral matters will become more palatable to the population at large. And this is why this apparently unimportant intervention may mark a turning point in the Ratzinger pontificate.

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See the first post on the supernatural aspects of the "Martini intervention" here.
-Sunday Update.

-Monday: S. Magister has published a translation of the full intervention here; readers will notice that the "prophylactic" discussion was not the main topic of Martini's remarks, which were an attack on the edifice of Catholic Moral Doctrine on issues of life and death; and, as Magister notes, and as we had noticed in this analysis, they are "the first great act of opposition to this pontificate from the upper levels of the Church".