"Ecclesiastical Oddities": Héctor Agüer, Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata, tries to understand what is going on in the Argentine episcopate under Francis

ECCLESIASTICAL ODDITIES

by Archbishop Héctor Agüer

Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata, Argentina

 Buenos Aires, June 1, 2024

[La Plata, Argentina: Immaculate Conception Cathedral in central Moreno Square]

The corresponding adjective is "odd" ("rare"), which has several meanings in the dictionary; I choose one: odd is that which has little density and consistency. Although it also refers to extraordinary and extravagant things. I mean: it is an oddity that the Pope is Argentinian, what is also odd is the fact that in over a decade he has not had the concern to visit his homeland. John Paul II (Wojtyla) and Benedict XVI (Ratzinger), as soon as they were elected, the first trip they made took them to their homeland, respectively Poland and Germany. I read in “La Prensa”, a Buenos Aires newspaper: “Francis revealed that he would like to come in November or at the beginning of 2025”. Under this title, the newspaper says that the Pope “commented that it is in his plans to travel to Argentina either at the end of November or at the beginning of 2025”. According to the old saying, “think wrong and you will be right,” I dare to think that he will not come, and I outline a reason: he knows that he is not going to do very well. I may be wrong, of course, but this opinion of mine responds to a 46-year-old knowledge of Jorge Bergoglio.

"The Death of a Pontificate" - by Aldo Maria Valli

Empty square and exhausted rituals: The Death of a pontificate

Aldo Maria Valli

October 26, 2023

The image speaks for itself. A Wednesday general audience. An empty square. Only a few dozen people. All right, it's raining. But once upon a time, when it rained, the square became a sea of umbrellas.

The image is bleak, and the Vatican media, starting with the TV center, no longer know how to hide the fact: no one goes to listen to Francis. They try to make up for it with close-ups, indeed very closed-up images, somewhat like the Polish TV did with John Paul II on his visit to his homeland. But if, in the case of Polish television, the problem was hiding the crowds flocking to Wojtyła, in the Vatican the problem is the opposite: hiding the embarrassing gaps.

Head of Ukrainian Catholics: "It is with great pain that we learned of Pope Francis' words" praising Russian despotism

Pope Francis spoke with the Catholic youth of Russia online on August 25, 2023, as part of the 10th All-Russian Meeting of Catholic Youth held in St. Petersburg.

 Statement of the Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on the discussion around some of the statements of Pope Francis at a meeting with Catholic youth in Russia

It was with great pain and concern that we learned of the words attributed to His Holiness Pope Francis at an online meeting with Russian Catholic youth on August 25, 2023 in St. Petersburg.

“Questioned, deaf to criticism...” -- A Tense "End of Reign" Climate in Francis' Vatican

“Questioned, deaf to criticism...” The end of a lonely reign for Pope Francis

Le Figaro

Jean-Marie Guénois

May 13, 2022

Francis listens but likes to decide alone at the risk of isolation.

ROME - Never before has Pope Francis faced such adversity. In this year 2022, the tenth of his pontificate, everything seems to be conspiring against him. Rome, always quick to burn what it adores, is in turmoil. Some discern a mature phase of the pontificate. Others see an "end of reign", according to an expression common in the Eternal City. Many are already thinking about what comes next. But Francis, 85 years old and very combative, is far from having said his last word. A great worldwide Christian jubilee is in sight for 2025. Above all, he is preparing his major reform: that of "synodality" for 2024.

Roberto de Mattei interviewed by La Verità - A Sharp Analysis of the End of the Francis Pontificate: "What is not conditional, and is irreversible, is the promise of Mary."

Roberto de Mattei, historian and former vice president of the National Research Council, directs the Fondazione Lepanto, the monthly Radici Cristiane, and the press agency CorrispondenzaRomana.

 

After recalling that no one can sing victory over a pile of rubble, Pope Francis reiterated that war destroys both winners and losers. These are the positions of the realist school of international relations: war may be legitimate, but it is “a form of moral failure,” as for example George Kennan wrote.

“The pope has never been a Tolstoyan pacifist. Over Leo Tolstoy he has always preferred Fyodor Dostoevsky, an author who shows the tragic aspect of reality. My impression, however, is that the war has definitively dissolved the utopia of human brotherhood set out in the encyclical Fratellli tutti.”

Do you see a change of perspective?

“War is like death. It is an indelible part of man’s destiny. The idea of a universal brotherhood is absent from the Gospel and is not a Christian value.”

But Christ asked us to love one another.

A Public Letter from Italian Laity: Francis, enough! Stop the ideological Civil War in the Church

This heartfelt letter by several Italian lay people was published today in Italian daily IL FOGLIO. The laity are exhausted after 8 years of war conducted from on top: we want peace. Stop, Francis, just stop.

Holy Father,

The latest book by Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant'Egidio and a well-known voice of the progressive Catholic world is entitled "The Church is Burning: Crisis and the Future of Christianity ”.

We have not written any books, we have not conducted any detailed analysis, but we see every day the slow fire that devours and destroys the Catholic Church in Italy and around the world.

The resignation of Benedict XVI, eight years ago, left many in desolation and others in hope. For some time there was talk of the "Bergoglio effect", alluding to a rebirth that unfortunately never took place. On the contrary! The "Church that goes forth" has remained a slogan with no real application. On the contrary, the holy city of Christianity [Rome], in the age of covid, was the first to barricade its churches, giving the world a sign of total desertion.