The Decadence of the Church and the Francis Pontificate - by Archbishop Héctor Agüer

 Archbishop Héctor Agüer

Emeritus of La Plata, Argentina

Buenos Aires, March 25, 2025

Twelve years of Francis' pontificate have just been celebrated. The Vatican reports are always self-congratulatory. 

It is very difficult to cover, in a single appraisal, the reality of the Church, which is vast and with differences between countries -- but from a certain point it is possible to contemplate the surroundings; I can do it, then, from this corner of the far south that is Argentina, a nation that is (or was?) mostly Catholic. As the saying goes, “one button is example enough."

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.

URGENT: Pope tells Italian Bishops he plans to abolish the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (Updated)

Update (May 26): Rorate's additional sources in Rome have confirmed this Wednesday that Francis has indeed a text on Summorum Pontificum lined up, which has been developed for months, but what is not known at this point is if the text is just about a more limited take on the Summorum application questionnaire (first revealed by us in the spring of 2020) or about an overhaul of Summorum Pontificum in general: drafts could be dealing with both matters. It is also not impossible for a text to come out of calculated ambiguity, in the general denial/non-denial terms favored by this pontificate.

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An urgent news item by our friends at Messa in Latino, the Pope spoke on the matter yesterday to the Italian bishops during the portion of the Italian Conference of Bishops' meeting in which the assembly was closed to the media:

It is, for the moment, still fragmentary news, coming from our multiple sources within the CEI [Italian Conference of Bishops] and bishops, but it seems that yesterday (May 24, 2021) the Pope, addressing the Italian bishops at the opening of the annual assembly of the CEI ( and in a subsequent meeting with a group of them), announced the imminent reform for the worse of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

 

...

From what is known, it would be a return to the indult -- with a prior authorization of the bishop [as under the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei], or of the Vatican -- with all that it entails, that is, a reintroduction of the prohibition of the celebration according to the Missal of St John XXIII, so many denials of authorizations, and the ghettoization, in practice, of the priests and faithful attached to the old rite. After Moses, the Liberator, Pharaoh returns. [Source]

Francis is Inspiring Many Good Priests and Bishops

Je te montrerai le chemin du ciel

Today, the Holy See released Francis' "Letter to Priests", on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the death of Saint John Vianney, patron of Parish Priests.

And this week, we witnessed in person the testimony of many priests, and the occasional bishop, who have been deeply inspired by Francis. Yes, indeed! The great grief and confusion coming from Rome is inspiring many good priests, and even the occasional bishop, to discover and cherish the deepest roots of Catholic thought and devotion.

Pope Francis the Problem

In the print edition of today's USA Today, online here, is a sad commentary by Melinda Henneberger, a former Vatican correspondent for the New York Times, where she announces her apostasy.

Henneberger, who is known to be center-left (dissident on, for instance, Humanae Vitae, but sympathetic toward limited pro-life causes) via her many years of writings, blamed her apostasy decision on "these men" and "the men who run the church" while avoiding any blame toward the man who runs the Church.

Who runs the Church?  Who is the Supreme Pontiff?  Who blocked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week from moving forward with a plan to get serious about the abuse crisis?  Even Tom Reese, S.J. (deemed too liberal for America magazine), called the move this week a "disaster" that would result in "terrible public relations for the pope."

The Francis Effect: A beautiful apology to traditional Catholics

Many of us have been heartened by the recent words of Msgr. Charles Pope. This interview, admission and apology to traditional Catholics everywhere is a wonderful example of how the current, rotten pontificate has brought together faithful Catholics whose disagreements were once a major obstacle.

There has been a lot of this lately. While many who have criticized traditional Catholics over the years have apologized, we were very heartened by the gracious words of Taylor Marshall:

This is how men of good will act toward one another. This is how all serious Catholics must begin to unite. This is how we survive, as a remnant in the words of Msgr. Pope, during this most awful time in the Church under a dictator pope and a cadre of rotten bishops.

The Francis Effect discussed in the New York Times

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the papacy of Pope Francis is his unification of traditional Catholics and conservative Catholics.  What started as an uncivil war in March 2013 -- when traditional Catholic sources such as Rorate (which was intimately familiar with Cardinal Bergoglio's work in Argentina) predicted a massive shift to the left, only to be harshly criticized by many Catholic conservatives who blindly defended Bergoglio as one who would continue the incremental restoration of Pope Benedict XVI -- has grown to a point where both camps are now singing from the same Liber.

We have written of the Francis Effect a few times, using data such as Pew Research Center's statistics on Mass attendance. Examples from the first year of this papacy are here and here.

Jubilee of Mercy News:1. Is the Jubilee of Mercy attracting far fewer pilgrims to Rome than expected? 2. Experimentation returns to the Papal Liturgy; Gospel accompanied by "dramatization" in Jubilee Mass for the Sick at St. Peter's

1. Is the Jubilee attracting fewer pilgrims than expected?

On June 10, Archbishop Rino Fisichella of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization announced that since the beginning of the current Jubilee, 9,100,935 pilgrims have visited the four Papal Basilicas - St Peter's, St John Lateran, S. Maria Maggiore and S. Paolo Fuori le Mura - and the Sanctuary of our Lady of Divine Love. The Jubilee of Mercy started on December 8, 2015 and will end on November 20, 2016, which means that we are already slightly more than halfway through the Jubilee year. While the summer season (peak season for tourists despite the heat) is still ahead, the Christmas, Lent, Holy Week and Easter seasons favored by numerous pilgrims have long been over.

Cardinal Dolan says "Bravo!"

"Who am I to judge?" makes a triumphant entry in the American subset of the College of Cardinals, in an interview granted to the highest-rated political debate program on US television, to be broadcast tomorrow:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York praised University of Missouri football star Michael Sam for coming out as gay, saying he would not judge the athlete for his sexual orientation. "Good for him," Dolan said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" airing Sunday.

"I would have no sense of judgment on him," Dolan continued. "God bless ya. I don't think, look, the same Bible that tells us, that teaches us well about the virtues of chastity and the virtue of fidelity and marriage also tells us not to judge people. So I would say, 'Bravo.'" [Source]

OK, then. Naturally, the Cardinal did not have to say anything at all regarding a specific individual, even if asked. But silence and discretion are one thing, explicitly refusing moral discernment is another, and raising such refusal to the status of "good" and "bravo" is quite noteworthy for a Prince of the Church, because it is in itself a moral judgment, a positive moral judgment.

It is quite easy to see that no moral debate in which the Catholic Church takes part, of any kind and on any level, can ever anymore advance even one inch if the parameters become simply an isolated reading of "not judging" - and much less if "not judging" is elevated to the positive judgment of "good" and "bravo." Politicians quote a pontiff when casting immoral votes, and what can the Church say, from now on, on any legal matter (that presupposes a moral order)? It can always be used to stop any social debate. What can poor pastors and vicars say regarding any sin, even personally to a parishioner, when the isolated presentation of "no sense of judgment" becomes normative? Or even regarding, for instance, an inclination that our judgmental Catechism of the Catholic Church defines as "objectively disordered" (regardless of the practice or not of the "intrinsically disordered" acts attached to it)?

And if you do not like this post, who are you to judge us?...

[Op-ed update: Cardinal Dolan, in this age, it is keeping the faith that deserves a "Bravo".]