Getting to grips with Pope Francis

Driving back from hearing confessions at Farleigh School – great kids by the way – a news item came on referring to “Pope Francis”. It jarred, and my first reaction, for a split-second, was to wonder what the hell they were tlaking about. Pope Francis is going to take some getting used to.

Some are already having a hard time of it. On a traditionalist blog – no link but its initials are RC – commenters are going into hypermode over the new pope. For so many of them it seems the world is effectively coming to an end.

Of all the unthinkable candidates, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is perhaps the worst. Not because he openly professes doctrines against the faith and morals, but because, judging from his work as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, faith and moral seem to have been irrelevant to him. …

Famous for his inconsistency (at times, for the unintelligibility of his addresses and homilies), accustomed to the use of coarse, demagogical, and ambiguous expressions, it cannot be said that his magisterium is heterodox, but rather non-existent for how confusing it is.

His entourage in the Buenos Aires Curia, with the exception of a few clerics, has not been characterized by the virtue of their actions. Several are under grave suspicion of moral misbehavior. …

This election is incomprehensible: he is not a polyglot, he has no Curial experience, he does not shine for his sanctity, he is loose in doctrine and liturgy, he has not fought against abortion and only very weakly against homosexual “marriage” [approved with practically no opposition from the episcopate], he has no manners to honor the Pontifical Throne. He has never fought for anything else than to remain in positions of power. …

This is from the blog article to which commenters are adding such things as:

You guys can try to spin this all you want, Cardinal Bergoglio is a devout Vatican II modernist. He is as “traditional” and as “conservative” as Christoph Schonborn! Yeah, people change, but Bergoglio will have to be totally implanted with another ideological intellect by the Holy Ghost for him to change. I pray for that miracle, but I won’t hold my breath. Bergoglio is a product of the Vatican II rot which has permeated the Church of Christ for fifty years. Remember, he was elected by two thirds of the current college of Cardinals. Scary! …

I’m terrified, frankly. A flagrantly Modernist Pope again… it might as well have been Card. Schoenborn! …

Well, I said I would suspend my judgment until he acts, but boy it’s harder to do than I thought it would be, especially in this case. This looks like a win for the bureaucrats and progressives. Cardinal Rode, Meisner and Pell looked downright somber. If Sandri becomes Secretary of State, that tells us everything we need to know.

The hysteria is palpable at times. The main article is stunning for its libels, offered without a shred of evidence. In fact as Cardinal Bergoglio Pope Francis was considered to be doctrinally very orthodox, and notoriously intolerant of liberation theology. He speaks several languages (he studied in Germany for goodness’ sake!), his simplicity of life point at the least to a practical attempt at sanctity, and he wrote a strident letter that even the blog itself felt obliged to post given its condemnation of same-sex ‘marriage’. The letter is to the Carmelites of his dicoese, asking their prayers and sacrifices in his campaign against the legislation to legalize this form of ‘marriage’. He spoke of it thus:

Let us not be naive: it is not a simple political struggle; it is an intention [which is] destructive of the plan of God. It is not a mere legislative project (this is a mere instrument), but rather a “move” of the father of lies who wishes to confuse and deceive the children of God.

I think his opinion is clear, and it is hardly at odds with the Catholic Faith.

Indeed, no doubt a similar hysteria will soon emerge from the Catholic ‘left’ as they realise that this man committed to social justice might well also be committed just as strongly to the truths of the Faith. Then we can expect to hear that he is too old, unable to cope with Vatican being such an outsider to the Curia, at odds with his fellow Jesuits who see him as rigid, and perhaps some will even try to tarnish him with some sort of association with the Argentine regime in the days of the junta.

But spare a small trace of sympathy, of thy charity, for Paul Collins, who was acting as expert commentator for ABC Australia’s coverage of the announcement of the new pope. Paul Collins is a priest who stormed out of the ministry in protest at the Vatican’s investigation of his seriously flawed (to put it mildly) book, Papal Power. He has been a constant critic of Catholic teaching and Pope Benedict in particular. He now makes a lot of money as a celebrity ex-priest, called in for such roles as “expert” for the ABC coverage. So listen to his “expert” commentary below (thanks to a friend for passing this on to me). It is a “FAIL” on a monumental scale. I can only hope the taxpayer-funded ABC got back the fee it paid him. I seem not to be able to embed the video so please click the link below. How the mighty fall!

Two minutes of failed expert commentary

Viva Papa Francesco!