Insightful observation about Pope Francis – UPDATES!

UPDATE 14 Aug 1355 UTC:

The cat is out of the bag, but the chase is on.

The quote, below, has been removed at ZENIT and replaced with ellipsis.

But, for the moment at least, it is still at Rosica’s site “Salt and Light“.

By email I learned that someone added the page to Wayback.

Originally Published on: Aug 13, 2018 @ 20:25

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, wrote a really positive piece about Pope Francis as a Jesuit and about how Jesuits work, how they think, etc.

This is a really interesting comment from Rosica about the Holy Father.

From Zenit:

Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture. Pope Francis has brought to the Petrine office a Jesuit intellectualism.

See?  I told you it was interesting.  It has garnered a bit of attention in the Tweetosphere.

I wonder what it means.

The moderation queue is most DEFINITELY ON.

UPDATE 14 August:

A Rosica tweet that seem relevant:

UPDATE 17 August:

I was sent a link to a longish piece by Fr. Rosica which he posted at his Salt and Light site: “We all are in this boat together” : A Reflection on the Current Crisis in the Church”.  Rosica’s piece is 2290 words long.

It is undoubtedly true that we are all in this together, as human beings, all of us, made in God’s image and as baptized members of Christ’s Mystical Person.  Hence, we need to use charity with each other, looking to what is truly the other’s good.

Here is a paragraph that stood out for me and which prompted me to do a little search within the webpage.

Clerical Celibacy
There are those who think incorrectly that obligatory clerical celibacy contributes to depression and causes the sexual abuse of children. Celibacy is not in itself a factor, but – like any form of the Christian life taken and lived seriously – it has its perils. When celibacy works well for priests, it can be a blessed source of spiritual and pastoral fruitfulness for the Church; when it works badly it can be very damaging and have devastating effects. Priests and religious who sexually abused children did so because of the sexual disorder of pedophilia or ephebophilia. They abused because of a sexual disorder, not because they were celibate. The studies are clear on this point: most child abuse takes place within the family. Sexual abuse of a child by a family member results in serious, psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest. We have right to be angry over the current situation but no right to despair. We must pray for a true cleansing of the temple – of the Church. We must pray that our anger and frustration not lead us to hopelessness but to a deeper witness of faith and a holy life especially in such difficult times.

If we are to treat each other with charity, then we also must deal in the truth.  Identifying the truth of the underlying problems we face together in this boat of ours, is absolutely necessary.

So, I ask: Is there anything missing from that paragraph?

Not once in his 2290 word long piece does Fr. Rosica mention the true underlying cause of 99% of the problem we face: homosexuality.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Francis and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

62 Comments

  1. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    So very disturbing.

    I pray that when either the Lord comes, or the guard finally changes again for the good, that all the wolves and snakes who have been so free with their heresy and scandal will easily be purged with the chaff.

    I pray the Rosicas are outing themselves….

  2. Peter Hans says:

    It means: “we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re in your face; mission accomplished.” Sound familiar, anybody with a memory?

  3. Josephus Corvus says:

    Interesting….

    If one does not go to the actual article and reads only this quote, it could also be interpreted as extremely negative to the Holy Father.

  4. dafrenchman says:

    It is becoming more difficult to listen to this drivel as the barque is sinking. Sadly it’s like the proverbial frog in the pot…. Surely some kind of sanity has to be in store soon?

    [First, I don’t think this is at all “drivel”. I think it is honest! I think it says a great deal more than the writer perhaps intended to say. Also, remember: INDEFECTIBILITY.]

  5. richiedel says:

    I would be interested to know:

    1) Whether there are any defining characteristics which consistently identify what Jesuit intellectualism is

    -AND-

    2) How it is that what Pope Francis says or does in actuality reflect this Jesuit intellectualism

    I suspect, however, that Pope Francis can only be said to operate via Jesuit intellectualism when his words and actions are analyzed according to Jesuit intellectualism.

    One can only hope that authentic Jesuit intellectualism would have foundation in Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever – cf. Heb. 13:8, RIGHT???

  6. KatieL56 says:

    Ever since I read the comment (and I waded through the entire article by Father Rosica to be sure that I had the full context around it), I’ve thought about how well (sadly) this explains the current atmosphere regarding everything from the Dubia to ‘inflight interviews’ to the latest news regarding the disgraced McCarrick and the catechism changes. If the Pope is oriented to himself (the individual Jorge/Pope Francis) and apart from Scripture and Tradition, then what we see and hear from the Vatican would be precisely this: One man’s individual actions/reactions to whatever he sees fit to act or react to, however he sees fit to act/react. A dictatorship of relativism, indeed.
    But to this about to turn 62-year-old cradle Catholic who has tried for decades to walk neither to right nor left, to follow the Truth with the capital T, the One who is the Way, Truth, and Life, over time, and now at an accelerated rate, those things which I had trusted to as safe, sure ways, and whose clergy I had trusted as safe, sure guides are turning into shifting sands, quagmires, whited sepulchers, preaching ambiguous passages of Orwellian double-plus ungoodness. Mass (in my parish especially) is a Mess, liturgy free-form experiments, religious education political indoctrination; priests and bishops grow fat, complacent, lazy, mouthing their concern about ‘the poor’ and their contempt for the ‘rigid’, whining and shilling for the latest ‘campaign’ with the glossy brochures and the ‘earnest’ speakers who blather on about ‘human dignity’ and ‘achieving our potential’ as if they were corporate execs trying to squeeze out greater productivity from the grunts. Everything’s a ‘nod-wink’ to the Moloch of ‘choice’ and the ‘rights’ of this that and the other.
    All because the above concepts, questions, actions etc. are no longer being submitted to Scripture and Tradition (which are supposed to be protected by the Pope), but instead treated as items to be ‘kept’ or ‘discarded’ by the ‘choice’ of an individual.
    Well, one thing I’ve learned. The only Person we can count on is Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, and what He gave us. He gave us a Church and He promised the gates of Hell would not prevail. . .He didn’t say that the gates might not ‘break through’ for a while, even a long while, in various places.
    I have my catechism and I know how to use it. I know how Mass is celebrated correctly (both forms) even when it’s celebrated in an achingly wrong way. I know that the Church teaches ‘X’ even when its members try to claim it doesn’t teach ‘X’ but not-X, X as an ‘ideal only’, X ‘in the past but not today when it’s Y instead” etc. And I’m going to go on the same way as my grandparents did; they knew the Faith and they lived the Faith, not ‘the Faith for this time, or this place, or according to this priest, bishop, or even Pope”.
    I believe it was St. Joan of Arc who prayed this, and I pray it as well, “If I am in a state of grace, may God keep me there. If I am not in a state of grace, may God put me there.”

  7. Marion Ancilla Mariae II says:

    Francis is “free from disordered attachments” . . . ? Well, perhaps he is. However, it should be pointed out that to arrive at the state of being free from disordered attachments is to attain the height of sanctity. This would mean that Pope Francis is a living saint, for only the great saints were “free from disordered attachments” during their time here on earth . . . comparable persons would be Our Lady, the Holy Mother of God; Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta; Pope Saint John Paul II; Saint Teresa of Avila; Saint John the Baptist, etc. Does Father Rosica intend to put Pope Francis into the same category?

  8. TonyO says:

    I found the article morally, theologically, and historically illiterate. Here are just a few of many examples. Theological illiteracy:

    The Jesuit Pope is well versed in the Spiritual Exercises, so able to spread the knowledge and practice of this counterfeit way of conversion – a way that does not use the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to simply convict his hearers of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come, but invites people to experience Jesus,…

    “Counterfeit way of conversion”? What the heck?

    The whole concept of setting up committees, consulting widely, convening smart people around you is how Jesuit superiors usually function. Then they make the decision. This sort of discernment – listening to all and contemplating everything before acting – is a cardinal virtue of the Ignatian spirituality

    So, “setting up committees” and “convening smart people” is a cardinal virtue of spirituality? When it is committees that so often get in the way of knowing the real Jesus?

    with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture

    The conceptual distortions involved in even saying this boggle the mind. This author’s mind has been boggled a few too many times. The Church CAN’T be ruled by something contrary to “its own dictates”. It is supposed to be ruled by God, not by a man.

    Historical illiteracy:

    and his preference for collaboration over immediate action without reflection,

    This is the pope who spouted so many nonsense comments off the cuff that the Vatican spokesmen simply gave up correcting the mistakes out of exhaustion.

    Jesuits often refer to this commitment by the expression of “magis”; deep respect for others,

    This is the pope who told Card. Mueller, his prefect for CDF, (paraphrasing slightly) ‘goodbye, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out’ instead of actually, you know, explaining why he was pushing Cardinal Mueller out. And demoted Card. Sarah and kicked out Card. Burke in similar fashion.

    Pope Francis has brought to the Petrine office a Jesuit intellectualism.

    The one thing everyone has agreed on about Francis is that as an intellectual, he ain’t no intellectual. The only sense that the statement can be understood to be even remotely accurate is if one allows for the fact that “Jesuit intellectual formation” has become a swear-word in Catholic circles.

  9. NBW says:

    “authority of scripture alone” ? Isn’t that Protestant belief? Am praying God doesn’t let them get away with whatever they are conjuring up.

  10. Malta says:

    “You are causing confusion among the Christian people,” the Pontiff complained in his message to the Jesuit leaders, “and anxieties to the Church and also personally to the Pope who is speaking to you.” The Pope listed his complaints about the Jesuits, speaking about their “regrettable shortcomings” and their “doctrinal unorthodoxy,” and requesting them to “return to full fidelity to the Supreme magisterium of the Church and the Roman Pontiff.” He could not, he said, be more explicit or go much further in his forebearance with Jesuit deviations.–St. John Paul II, 9/21/1979 [source].

    Well there’s always the age solution to the problem.

  11. Sword40 says:

    I try not to be distracted by any of this negativity. The intellectual types will find this a fascinating study. But I’m just a common Catholic. I go to Mass, pray the Rosary daily, and even get through most of the Little Office of the BVM every day. I am fortunate to have the FSSP nearby to assist me make it through the week.

    God never promised us an easy trip through life.

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  12. The problem, my Latin brothers, is not with the Pope’s jesuitism, it’s with the papacy itself.

    [For some reason that I can’t fathom, you thought this was in some way relevant. Remember, sir, where you are.]

  13. GregB says:

    With the way Pope Francis operates, how can we verify the claim that he is “free from disordered attachments?” I mean people with addictions are usually the last ones to recognize that they have an addiction. This statement is the rejection of any concept of personal accountability. It is lawlessness, pretty much the church of Leona Helmsley.

  14. HvonBlumenthal says:

    The explains the Holy Father’s use of the phrase, unique to this papacy “my magisterium”

  15. rwj says:

    I agree with most of his evaluation…however one thing I cannot know is if anyone is detached from disordered attachments.

    Sad to think he believes what he said is a good thing. Thank God I’m not capable of Jesuit Intellectuallism.

  16. Kerry says:

    This is too easy,(forgive me), shooting salted fish in a barrel.
    “For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!’
    I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
    I liked white better,’ I said.
    White!’ he sneered. ‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’
    In which case it is no longer white,’ said I. ‘And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’

  17. MrsMacD says:

    Father Rosica starts from Jesuit principles that have been warped by the Theology of Teilhard de Chardin SJ. The original Jesuits and their spirituality were wedding to Christ, His love for the Church and her traditions and rooted deeply in scripture and our Lords command, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” The North American Martyrs came to our land and encouraged the people to make a beautiful church for Jesus and lived in poverty. They understood that the Spiritual Exercises were not a ‘new holy book’ but a way of entering into prayer, of amending one’s life, of coming closer to God.

    It’s a mess. I’m so glad God is in charge because nobody else could ever clean up this mess!!!

    I really love God’s Church, His truth, His ways, but I really haven’t much patience for this silly nonsense. (Just because he’s honest doesn’t mean it isn’t a truck load of fertilizer)

    (If I read that article by Father Rosica and hadn’t already attended good ignatian retreats then I would not trust an ignatian retreat.)

  18. LarryW2LJ says:

    Sort of reminds me of the “Nuns on the Bus” and their claims that they’ve gone beyond Jesus.

  19. DavidJ says:

    “it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture

    Remind me of how the Church of England worked has out again?

  20. Lurker 59 says:

    Being a convert to the Faith, I am very much acquainted with the Protestant strawman of the Pope, from the variants in Calvin/Luther, American No-Nothings, to the present day. I am also very much acquainted with how Catholic apologists, historical and current, have undertaken the herculean task of showing that the strawman of the Pope is but a figment of the Protestant imagination.

    Unfortunately, the supporters of Pope Francis, and himself, have made incarnate that strawman. It is frustrating to no end that the Protestant argument now holds and Fr. Rosica’s statement is that argument manifest.

    Why is Fr. Rosica playing the part of the crowd from Acts 12:22??


    As to Jesuit Intellectualism — Modern Jesuit thought comes out of the French Nouvelle Théologie schools of the early 20th century, divided into two camps, one wing can be represented by the journal Communio, the other by journal Communion and Liberation. There are epistemological differences between the two, but what they share in common is a non-Thomistic approach, which is where the anti-intellectualism / anti systematic charge is often leveled. Jesuit intellectualism isn’t so much “non-intellectualism” as it is an alternative system to the Neo-Thomistic intellectualism that is in practically all of the good manuals, catechetical materials, magisterial documents, until Vatican II.

    That said, there are plenty of modern Jesuits who are truly anti-intellectual or who show poor intellectual formation / thought process. (as the same can be said about Thomistic intellectuals). That said, again, that doesn’t mean that Jesuit intellectualism, especially of the Communion and Liberation type, doesn’t have major flaws, or is on par with other forms of Catholic intellectual life.

    Additionally, there is a sub wing of Jesuit thought, the South American Jesuit, which is the Communion and LIberation wing reinterpreted through an experiential Marxist hermeneutic and worldview. It, in turn, has influenced the European Jesuit stance so that subcategory overlaps more the Contential mode, and with Pope Francis’ s, largely dominant now. Pope Francis should be taken as the mode of what South American Jesuit intellectualism is, as his elevation to the Chair of Peter normalized that particular variant.

    If anyone thinks that the style and thought of Pope Francis shouldn’t be taken as the definition and form of what (South American) Jesuit intellectualism is, I very much welcome, as someone Jesuit trained, the argument of why the Pontiff isn’t the example par excellence of what Jesuit Intellectualism is.

  21. frmgcmma says:

    Rosica says that with Pope Francis “[the Church] is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture”.

    Exactly! He’s centered everything around himself and left out Christ, Scripture and Tradition. That’s why I’m all for “de-centralization” now.

    :-)

  22. rtjl says:

    So…. The British have a law prohibits any Catholic from ever becoming monarch. Maybe after this is all over, we will need a law that prohibits any Jesuit from becoming Pope. Just sayin…

    [If I am not mistaken, fully professed Jesuits vow never to accept honors or offices without permission. Of course this Jesuit had already accepted the episcopacy. I suppose we must assume that he was dispensed from his Jesuit vows.]

  23. I am confused; when I went to the link, I did not find the quote you gave. Is it possible the article has been updated or the link changed?

    [Zenit removed it, but Salt and Light still has it. ]

  24. rtjl says:

    It seems maybe they did say more than they intended. From what I can see, the quote provided here can no longer be found in the Zenit post. It seems to have been removed.

  25. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    The updated “parentheses” obscuring of text reminds me of the Novus Ordo lectionary “short forms.” Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

    This does imply that they are embarrassed about the frank heresy of Rosica (that we dont have to allow scripture and tradition determine what we believe)…and are now trying to hide it.

  26. richiedel says:

    “Hey, Paul, that Fr. Z. and his minions picked up on that quote from Rosica about the pope and Jesuit intellectualization…”

    “Intellectualism, Sir.”

    “That’s great. Anyway, you know how that guy’s kinda a lightning rod for all those traddies out there…”

    “Fr. Z…”

    “Yeah, that one. Those people, you know they have a little difficulty thinking for themselves, but that guy posts something about something and before you know it, all those traddies think they know something. Let’s, you know, don’t give them this excuse for thinking they know something there. Go into that article and take out that part about Jesuit intellectualizers…”

    “Intellectualism, Sir.”

    “Uh huh. Go in there and take it out and replace it with when you have the dots, you know, like the three periods in a row.”

    “Ellipsis, sir.”

    “What?!”

    “It’s called an ellipsis, Sir. The three periods in a row. That’s called an ellipsis.”

    “They’re eclipses?”

    “Ellipsis, sir. And , it’s singular. The three dots together, they form one ellipsis.”

    “Dammit, Paul. Don’t get smart! Thinking you know something just like all those traddies. Just get on it…”

  27. FN says:

    “The Church does not exist to take over people’s conscience but to stand in humility before faithful men and women who have discerned prayerfully and often painfully before God the reality of their lives and situations.” This type of discernment might work if we were all saints. We are not. We are sinners who need hard and fast rules. I can attest to this personally. I became pregnant at a very difficult time in our married life. I would certainly have had an abortion had I not converted to Catholicism a couple of years previously. Our daughter, the light of our lives, owes her life to the Catholic Church, whose precepts REPLACED the conscience I had formed whilst immersed in the culture of death. Deo gratias.

  28. John Grammaticus says:

    Since when did we become Mormons?

  29. Mallu Jack says:

    Do those who follow Catholic traditions have “disordered attachments”? Homosexuality shouldn’t be called disordered, but Catholicism may be.

  30. Elizabeth D says:

    Maybe this is like when Noah’s son Ham found Noah passed out drunk and naked and told his brothers Shem and Japheth who then came walking backward and carefully covered him up. Zenit is being like that trying to cover up Fr Rosica’s shame. But I wonder if Fr Rosica feels the appropriate shame that Noah felt, since he’s not altering the text on his own site. So maybe it’s not like that.

  31. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    Zenit’s clipping of the quote rather reminds me of this:

    I say to thee that thou art Peter…… get thee behind me, Satan.

  32. Mallu Jack says:

    As for the Church being “openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture”, allow me to quote from Lumen Fidei, an encyclical released in Pope Francis’ name:

    49. As a service to the unity of faith and its integral transmission, the Lord gave his Church the gift of apostolic succession. Through this means, the continuity of the Church’s memory is ensured and certain access can be had to the wellspring from which faith flows. The assurance of continuity with the origins is thus given by living persons, in a way consonant with the living faith which the Church is called to transmit. She depends on the fidelity of witnesses chosen by the Lord for this task. For this reason, the magisterium always speaks in obedience to the prior word on which faith is based; it is reliable because of its trust in the word which it hears, preserves and expounds.[45] In Saint Paul’s farewell discourse to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, which Saint Luke recounts for us in the Acts of the Apostles, he testifies that he had carried out the task which the Lord had entrusted to him of “declaring the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Thanks to the Church’s magisterium, this counsel can come to us in its integrity, and with it the joy of being able to follow it fully.

  33. Traductora says:

    I went on a pilgrimage to Auriesville many decades ago, just before the collapse of everything. Auriesville (way Upstate NY) is where several of the Jesuit Martyrs (St. Isaac Jogues, et al.) died or were captured by the Indians they had gone to evangelize. There is a ravine there, called the largest “outdoor reliquary,” where the body of the Jesuit brother Rene Goupil was thrown by the Indians, and you could (and I believe still can) follow a route through the trees. There were prayers and statues at various points and trees upon which the name “Jesus” was carved, as the Jesuits had done when they were captives. The place went into decline for many years, although I think it has now revived, and there is a “traditionalist” pilgrimage there once a year, along with other pilgrimages from NYC. You can read the history on their webpage.

    But I was so impressed by the Jesuit martyrs that we named our first son after St Isaac Jogues.

    Years later, I went regularly to a Russian Byzantine Rite church in San Francisco whose priest was Fr. Karl Patzelt, a Bavarian who had been drafted as a seminarian into being a stretcher bearer in the German army during WWII, was captured by the Russians and spent many years in a gulag – and came back with a burning desire to evangelize the Russians. He became a Jesuit and went to the Russicum and at that point was preparing people, including a Carmelite monastery, to go in to evangelize Russia when Communism fell, as he knew it would. He lived at the Jesuit residence at St Ignatius Church/USF and by that time the Jesuits had gone so rotten that the others (all young pro-Communist) didn’t even speak to him at dinner and in fact would elbow him or pretend to trip him when he carried his tray to his nearly solitary table.

    I moved out of SF, and the next time I went to that church, a few years after Fr. Karl’s death, the young Jesuit priest celebrated mass barefoot, wearing a sort of Ghandi-style white pijama garment, and had us sit on the floor while he “preached” about Buddha.

    Corruptio optimi, and all that. Still, I think distorting the nature of the Papacy and, as the writer of Rorate said, making the Pope seem like Reverend Moon, may be one step too far even for the Jesuits. I think they should be permanently disbanded. But somehow, they’ve ended up in charge, and Francis, while not a smart man but instead an intellectually limited one out of his depth and thus a resentful and angry one, and one with an incredible lust for power, is simply a logical outcome of letting this alien force take over the Church.

  34. Benedict Joseph says:

    Father Rosica’s website “Salt + Light” has of this moment yet to be scrubbed. The “pearl of great price” announcing our “new phase” [also known as the “new paradigm”] is toward the end.
    http://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=72516
    This is what we are dealing with.
    Read and weep.
    Dare we name it?

  35. Antonin says:

    is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture. Pope Francis has brought to the Petrine office a Jesuit intellectualism.

    Wow! So much wrong with that I cannot even begin to unpack it all. First of all the Jesuit charism is discernment not intellectualism – that charism belongs to the Dominicans who interestingly have a very different understanding of obedience than the Jesuits do.

    But the papacy has always been guided by tradition and Scripture – its mission is to unite the brethern in faith.

    We are not a cult worshiping an “individual”

  36. Joe in Canada says:

    John Grammaticus – exactly. The Mormon god can change his mind, and communicates it to the President etc of the Mormon Church. Not at all the Christian papacy.
    And I wouldn’t expect a Basilian to understand Jesuit spirituality, or “Jesuit intellectualism”. It is more important to understand a) the Holy Father’s generation of Jesuits, who seem often to be angry frustrated old men, and b) his time as Jesuit provincial, when he did in fact have the right to expect instant obedience, even to the point where if he said “black is white” his Jesuit subjects were expected to agree. A Jesuit provincial has much more infallibility than a Pope.

  37. ChrisP says:

    So why did Zenit remove it?

  38. seeker says:

    When I read “free from disordered attachments” I initially thought it meant Francis was not a practicing homosexual. The rest of the quote put the author’s meaning in context. Guess, I’m old-fashioned.
    By the way, Peter Hans, I was active in prolife work in NYC in the 90s. While protesting at City Hall, some homosexuals chanted, “we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re coming for your kids”.
    Unrelated, but we could all use a pick-me-up: Cardinal Burke said Mass at The Blue Army Shrine for the anniversary of the Aug 13 Fatima apparition yesterday. In addition, he asked if he could lead the Rosary. So we had that going for us.

  39. The Egyptian says:

    The Pope does not lie, he is DEFINITELY not attached to order of any type. I disrepair of my faith sometimes, bad bishops and a incomprehensible pope to boot

  40. Sword40 says:

    The only Jesuit, that I have personally known, is Fr. Ken Baker. He is NOT what you’d call a “modern” Jesuit. He will be 89 this November. He used to say the low Mass for us about three years ago. Fr. Baker is now retired down in California at the Jesuit house and he is writing like crazy.

    Fr. Baker is an amazing man and priest.

  41. Kathleen10 says:

    He found a way to use the word “disordered” against us. Those words “disordered inclinations” pertaining to themselves, is so annoying to these men, and as sure as God made little green apples, that is on the chopping block, wait and see. Maybe in old Pagan Ireland, it will be revealed to be gone. Pope’s got a pen and a phone.
    The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report is all about these men and now we see what we’re dealing with. We’re going to get some gory details about the Boy’s Club going on in our church.

    The Quest Conference header found by Joseph Sciambra has laid it all out for us and there are not more excuses. We see that pederasty, or being, as they like to put it “minor attracted” (means you diddle little boys as a hobby), is what they are aiming for. A conference that has Joseph Martin, Jesuit priest of some sort, and a coterie of priest pals, apparently yakking about, what else, how to enjoy being gay even more than you do now. Imagine for a second any priest of a prior age, or a doctor of the church coming back for a day and realizing THAT horror was taking place!

    Ok we get it. So now what. One thing for sure is, to take seriously the necessity of warning every parent within earshot to never, never, NEVER, leave their boy of any age alone with a priest. This has come home like a bad chicken, and this is something we all have a responsibility to remind others about. Boys are extremely vulnerable now, and if you are a grandparent raising a boy, which often happens today, or you are a guardian of a boy, for the love of God do not ever leave them alone with an unrelated male, and definitely not a priest or bishop. If ANY man takes an interest in your boy, wants to take him alone, or on trips, say NO. These men target vulnerable boys who do not have fathers in their lives! They know these boys are missing male attention, and these vermin use that to gain an emotional advantage, which they use to coerce, seduce, or rape a boy or teen. Don’t let it be yours. We should be watching out for every boy.
    God help boys and young men, please Lord, help them and do not let them continue to be used by people who would use them and then throw them away when they are done with them, as happened to McCarrick’s victim “James”. This is a common theme. And we wonder why there are so many suicides among young people coerced into gay activity.

  42. LatinMan says:

    Agree with the Gold Star Poster above. At first, this kind of a thing could distress me, but now I just shrug it off. Not because it isn’t bad, but because it seems par for the course for this Pontificate. Pray, pray for the Church!

    Having said that, how Rosica could, in one and the same article, discuss Francis’s humility, and then go on to assert that Francis has arrogated to his own intellect alone, apart from divine revelation, the rule of faith is just dumbfounding. Or, rather, it would be, if we didn’t have good reason to suspect that they have ulterior motives.

    Once again, pray for the Church! Pray for the Pope! Pray for the bishops!

  43. It amazes me that Father Rosica actually wrote that, and then left it in the article. He can complain all he likes about people being mean to him, with repeated rebukes about “context,” but there is no context in which that paragraph isn’t astounding and damaging. Attachment to Catholic tradition (big t or little) is “disordered”? The Church ruled by a man, in distinction to Scripture and/or Tradition?

    What is Fr. Rosica’s defense? That he has some sort of disorder that causes him uncontrollably to author bizarre statements and then be incapable of fixing them?

  44. robtbrown says:

    Attachment to Scripture and Tradition is disordered.

    Attachment to homosexual inclinations is not disordered.

    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
    Hover through the fog and filthy air

    . . .

    Life is a tale told by an idiot,
    Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

    Macbeth
    The first is said by the witches, the second by the Queen of Hospitality herself, Lady MacBeth

    [Great Title for the Lady, but the speech is by Macbeth.]

  45. robtbrown says:

    Mea culpa.

    Here is the text:

    She should have died hereafter;
    There would have been a time for such a word.
    To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time,
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

    Reminds me of a quote attributed to Henry Ford: History is one damned thing after another.

  46. robtbrown says:

    Lurker,

    1. The journals are Concilium and Communio. The former was founded by the likes of Rahner, Kung, Congar, and Schillebeeckx. The latter was founded by Balthasar, Ratzinger, de Lubac, Bouyer, and a few others.

    Communion and Liberation is an ecclesial movement founded by Padre Giusanni.

    2. It’s true that La Nouvelle Theologie came mainly out of Jesuits, the name coming from an article written by Garrigou LaGrange. It began as an effort to reinstate Scripture and Tradition as the sources of theology (ressourcement), against Neo Scholasticism, that behind doctrine was not just the legislative authority of the Church but a rich theological history.

    3. The split between the Concilium and Communio advocates happened because the latter were interested in only picking out certain Patristic texts that seemed to support extremely subjective post modern philosophy, i.e., German Existentialism.

  47. robtbrown says:

    Should be

    3. the former were interested in only picking out . . .

  48. Michael Haz says:

    Jesuit intellectualism? Does that refer to the “intellectualism” that has turned fine Jesuit universities into secular institutions that mimic the worst of public universities?

    That intellectualism? You can have it, then.

    I’ll say it out loud: I’m traddie and proud.

  49. OttawaDaddy says:

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sex-abuse-in-catholic-church-was-homosexual-problem-not-pedophilia-vatican

    The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican’s representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is “more correct,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.

    “Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,”

  50. OttawaDaddy says:

    What does Rosica mean in this post?

    http://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=76404

    ” can honestly say that the Synod Fathers were genuinely trying to find a way to recognize those who live a homosexual lifestyle, but were in no way comparing such a union to Christian marriage between a man and a woman. “

  51. Pingback: Fr Rosica tries unsuccessfully to turn abuse crisis away from homosexuality. #catholic #catholicmetoo – CIA Blog

  52. Unwilling says:

    “we are all in this

    Sometimes I think that what one speaker understands by an indexical like this crisis is almost the opposite of what others assume. It is such a disjunction of understandings that explains why we do not find key analytic terms (e.g. “homosexual”) where we think they most obviously belong. Some, like Rosica, seem to think this crisis is the threat to established networks of power, more sympathetic acceptations of sexual activities, friendlier engagement with the nowadays, etc. Others see this crisis as threats to the articulation of Truth, fraying ties to Scripture and Tradition, loss of the sense of holiness and transcendence, the damnation of souls, etc.

    Notice in the new quotation from Rosica that the cause of pathological sexual exploitation is in the victims as objects: it is “because of… pedophilia [victims being children] or ephebophilia [victims being youths]”. Whereas, from a more obvious attention, the cause is the depraved will of those homosexual predators who target the victims.

  53. acardnal says:

    I seem to recall Jesus saying, “If you love me, obey my commandments.”

  54. Benedict Joseph says:

    I am somewhat surprised. You know that there are men who experience same sex attraction who are leading faithful lives of chastity within and without the priesthood. Pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia are not exclusive by any means to the same-sex attracted. They are at least as common among heterosexual males, if not more so.
    Christ’s grace is able to achieve the miraculous in the lives of men receptive to it. Is the candidate for ordination receptive to grace? That is the question. Is this man being called by Christ and is he receptive to His grace? This can only be determined by conscientious vocation directors and superiors. Should a sincere virtuous candidate shouldering this cross be denied the opportunity to respond to Christ’s call because we are unwilling to do the depth discernment required of ALL candidates? The Lord who raised Lazarus from the dead, who gave sight to the man born blind, can and will without doubt support and sustain the candidate shouldering same-sex attraction who clings to Him and is prudently directed by holy priests.

  55. Sportsfan says:

    “I wonder what it means.”

    It doesn’t MEAN anything. For there to be psychoanalysis there has to be a psyche to analyze.
    It’s all slogans and fluff. There is no substance.

    As my grandfather used to say, ” He’s just talking to hear his jaws rattle.”

    These guys aren’t the enemy, Fr. Rosica and co. They are a distraction that should be ignored.
    Of course that is just IMHO.

  56. Sconnius says:

    Where do these guys (several bishops amd now Fr. Rosica) get their info? I just completed the KofC ‘Safe Environment’ training and renewed my diocesan ‘Virtus’ certification, and all the numbers, over the last few decades, indicate that children are –not– at greatest risk to be abused by a family member (<30%) but by someone else they know and trust (~55%) like a coach, teacher, or, priest, who has access to them and can manipulate the child into finding ways into getting them alone.

  57. robtbrown says:

    When a Jesuit is offered to become a member of the episcopacy, he does not need dispensation from his vows.

    The Fourth Vow taken by certain Jesuits professes obedience to the pope. It is the pope who requests someone to become a bishop.

  58. robtbrown says:

    I have little use for the phrase “same sex attraction” because it permits, and perhaps even encourages, that there is some link between close friendship among men and homosexuality.

    The difference between the two is not a difference in degree–it is a difference in kind.

  59. robtbrown says:

    Fr Rosica is correct in referring to Jesuit intellectualism, but it is only a certain type of it. George Tyrrell SJ is considered one of founders of theological Modernism.

    The Rosica attribution to the pope that Francis is not bound by the authority of Scripture and Tradition is more than a hint of theological Modernism.

    Theological Modernism is the concept that every age has its own ideas. That of course is true, but TM extends this to Revelation. Scripture? That is just the ideas of the First Century of Jesus’ followers. Ditto for Tradition, including the Fathers and the Medieval Doctors. Fine for their time, but hardly applicable to contemporary times.

    And so it goes: We of the 21 century are Enlightened (1), and so our ideas are more relevant to our lives than the NT writings of the First Century.

    (1) Note the relation of “Enlightened” to Gnosticism.

  60. Supertradmum says:

    What intellectualism? A true intellectual seeks only after TRUTH.

  61. RobtBrown said:

    I have little use for the phrase “same sex attraction” because it permits, and perhaps even encourages, that there is some link between close friendship among men and homosexuality.

    The difference between the two is not a difference in degree–it is a difference in kind.

    A priest friend of mine says that “same sex attraction” — properly understood — is normal and good; he means in the sense of friendship; he says we should be saying something like, same-sex erotic attraction.

    Missed in all this most of the time is that the normalization of sexual attraction between people of the same sex is killing friendship.

  62. Pingback: RECENT POSTS and MASS FOR BENEFACTORS | Fr. Z's BlogFr. Z's Blog

Comments are closed.