My friend Fr. Ray Blake, intrepid PP of Brighton, has a strong post upon which you might reflect.
Peronism and Corruption
I had a lesson in Peronism from an Argentinian waiter recently, in Argentina he was a PPE graduate.
Peronism, he said, was the most corrupt form of politics, because you could be a Communist, or a Facist, or a Capitalist, the only thing that mattered was support for Peron, post Peron any other head of State. It is a remnant of 1920/30s Facism, where the will of the Fuhrer or Il Duce was all that mattered. Right or Wrong, Good or Bad, Custom or Tradition, Law or Morality or anything else pale into insignificance and have no validity compared to the Will of the Leader.
Therefore the ideal is to be as close as possible to the Leader, failing direct proximity the next best thing is to be close either to those who are close to the Leader or those know, or claim to know, the mind of the Leader. Under such a system moral automony is reduced to slavery because is no mral compass, such abstracts as Right and Wrong are of no importance. All that does matter is Dux Vult. If the leader is somewhat erratic that doesn’t really matter, it just means his followers have to be closer and listen even more intently and it could be that what was the Leader’s will last year or even this morning, might not be so now, or his will expressed to A might be the complete opposite of what was expressed to B.
To the Peronist the old elite, who based their authority on intellectual expertise or their understanding, or knowledge, even their fidelity to the law must be supplanted, nothing other than the leaders will matters. They represent an alternative authority, and therefore a possible alternative source of power, and certainly a source of evaluation and criticism. Peronism hates intellectuals, they are always totally arbitary and concerned with what is expedient, what adds to or deepens the leaders power.
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Read the rest there.
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Sounds like an urging to stick with the deposit of the Faith and avoid putting too much stock in the opinion of the current people at the vatican. I think it also could apply to executive orders, which have been used surprisingly sparingly by the current president but which were the main mode of operating for the last president. I dislike it when a president has a law to enforce and they simply say, nope, this one we will not enforce! Yet some people actually like their leaders to be lawless!
Brilliant. Courageous.
“If the leader is somewhat erratic that doesn’t really matter, it just means his followers have to be closer and listen even more intently and it could be that what was the Leader’s will last year or even this morning, might not be so now…”
Hmm… Sounds like the willful god of the nominalists. Or Allah.
Fr. Blake explains “Bergoglianism”? For the Dictionary of Contemporary Theology definition of this subtle but richly evocative term, see
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/01/dictionary-of-contemporary-theology.html
That was an interesting article by Fr. Blake.
It is a curious thing indeed that some people prefer to be lorded over by their leaders. That was generally alien to Americans until recent times, and yes, lay the blame for the new trend at the feet of Obama and his followers. Before him, it was “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, but since him, it is “the end justify the means”, and if the means are oppressive and fascist, oh well. Tough to be you.
This is all bad enough in political circles, but in the Church, this has no place at all, and has already proven itself to be entirely destructive.
An intriguing comment on Fr. Blake’s post suggests that orthodox Cardinals are holding fire because they want to be around for the next conclave, which rates to be something of a free-for-all. Whether such a muted stance is prudent or pusillanimous God alone knows, but it certainly behooves us pewsitters to beg Him that they be empowered to act with enlightenment and courage when the hour for action comes.
Someone on another site made a very astute comment, that he thought a series of missteps has produced a situation where ‘the Pope is losing control of the narrative’. I have to think that there are many, many prelates who for whatever reason are not speaking out like a Bishop Schneider, but are horrified at the current state of the Church.
If this is the prevailing mood at the Vatican then it is not surprising that they are going along with the Chinese government’s desire to control the appointment of bishops in China and thereby throw the faithful bishops under the bus:
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-Vatican-asks-legitimate-bishops-to-step-aside-in-favour-of-illegitimate-ones-42896.html
the post is very true- i lived in Argentina in the late 60s , & to an American, the political landscape was weird- virtually a one party state. You had left peronists & right peronists- who had little in similarity except the will to power. The whole system was a cronyism & corporatist nightmare. It was really based on early Italian fascists thought (not an argument ad Hitler-no implied genocide) the system tried to a bring together large businesses, unions, and the government into a syndicate to minimize conflicts & achieve compromise. Of course those not at the table got the shaft-consumers & small business w/o political influence. High tariffs & bureaucratic bloat were the order of the day. Large companies we’re shielded from foreign competition & the nationalized firms were to big to fail-soon the whole economy was a mess. They managed to turn Argentina from a 1st world country into a 3rd world one in a little more than a generation.