Sometimes I have to triage my time. For example, I can do some reading about “chaos theory” or “fundamental force concepts”. On the other hand, I can read the transcript of a papal presser aboard an airplane. Either way, I have to really strain to figure out what the heck anything means.
The National Catholic Register has a piece about the latest surreal papal plane presser (PPP) HERE.
I’ll rant a little.
A lot of people are writing to me about a strange comment made by Francis during the PPP about “schism”.
It seems that Francis said:
I am not afraid of schisms, I pray that there will be none, because what is at stake is people’s spiritual health. Let there be dialogue, let there be correction if there is an error, but the schismatic path is not Christian.
This is preceded and followed by various ramblings which drive me back to the relative ease of deciphering the interplay of weak and strong forces in quantum physics.
Did, as my questioners ask, Francis say that “schisms don’t scare me!”, as if to say, “Bring on the schisms!”?
I doubt it.
The more reasonable explanation is that Francis just sort of talks. He has a microphone and he rambles.
I think what he meant to say, probably, is that he doesn’t think that schisms will happen. He’s not worrying about it.
Whether that’s what he really wants or not is another matter. If you read biographies, there is a history of division when he is involved. Also, he has probably intentionally fed energy to the Anglophone movement to brand loyal critics and faithful Catholics as “schismatic”.
Every self-respecting and faithful Catholic has an innate horror of schism, which is a manifest violation of charity on many levels that ultimately leads to heresy.
That said, “schism” is a term which the New catholic Red Guards have instrumentalized in order to provoke something they hope for.
They, in fact, are the ones who want the schism. In mock horror of “schism”, they seeks to bring it about.
Libs, the Left, have had schismatic tendencies for decades, during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict. Hence, “schism” is their default position. This is where they automatically tend. This is, as a result, how they see people on the other side of the issues. They were perpetually schismatic for decades and still are. Hence, every body else is.
What they are doing started out from these hard-wired impulses. Now, however, their version of catholic Deep State has coordinated their messaging. The Central Committee of El Pueblo, as it were, has seen the potential that “schism” talk can have. Remember, they are all about dividing, not unifying, breaking, not building. So, the CC of El P has given a signal to the troops in the streets, the street thugs of the New catholic Red Guards. The NcRGs are now marching up and down the streets, pumping their arms up and down with copies of Amoris and Laudato, confronting anyone and everyone who questions the movements of the pontificate. They specialize in targeting certain figures for vituperation and intimidation. They call for their firing. They call their bishops to tattle and to bully. They drum the drums and stoke the fires of conflict relentlessly. They spread Disinformation, intended to deceive.
What they hope will happen is that those conservative or traditional Catholics with whom they are now incessantly picking a fight with fighting words like “schism” will eventually get fed up and will make imprudent statements and gestures out of frustration. There are professional provocateurs among them. They run hither and thither on Twitter and other venues posting their Large Character Posters about
— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) September 11, 2019
In China, during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards virtually rioted, police who tried to gain control were denounced as “counter-revolutionaries”. Eventually even the head of the National Police shrugged at the violence of the Red Guards and said that beating people to death in the street was “no big deal”. So the Guards hunted down anyone suspected of being “capitalist roaders” with views that didn’t coincide with the ever moving targets of the positions of the powers that be.
You can see how this is building in Anglophone circles. Indications were sent out to the New catholic Red Guards in the form of loony notions about the American Church burbled by Antonio “2+2=4” Spadaro, SJ, in La civiltà cattolica. Nonsense essay, but filled with signals to the cells. The same Spadaro travelled to these USA to Boston to coordinate messaging with key figures present by invitation only. Thereafter, slowly, a narrative was spun up out of thin air implying that anyone who didn’t think that adulterers should receive Communion, or that not everything that Francis uttered was the equivalent of the 13th apparition of Vishnu, was probably a crypto-schismatic.
I am not sure how to create and embed a “thread” from Twitter, but Christopher Lamb, a wannabe New catholic Red Guard member, offered some logorhea about this “schism” tactic.
/1
Splits or disagreements are nothing new for Christianity. St Paul warned the early Church: “if you bite and devour each other, you will be destroyed.”
The Pope is saying something similar to his opponents: learn how to disagree or risk schismhttps://t.co/EHILzZmdU0
— Christopher Lamb (@ctrlamb) September 11, 2019
I made a screenshot of the thread. It’s small, but legible.
Crazy stuff.
Remember… they want a schism. In an incredibly ironic charade, the gang that despised and resisted John Paul II and Benedict XVI for decades with their heterodoxy are now fashioning themselves as the defenders of the papacy. They’ve created a new orthodoxy, which shifts with every papal plane presser or document with vague authority.
If you have the stomach for this, there are some figures who are driving this.
Austen Ivereigh – various, but always Twitter
Michael Sean “Madame Defarge” Winters at the Fishwrap
Massimo “Beans” Faggioli especially on Twitter
James Martin, SJ especially at Amerika
Bobby Mickens at La Croix International
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Again borrowing from the Alinsky playbook, Francis and others will more and more use “schism” or “schismatic.” These are the equivalent of “racist” or “hater” as default terms to discredit those who disagree. The goal is for the accuser to shift the terms of the discussion.
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Nailed it.
Also, I think those who are trying to provoke intemperate responses seem a bit desperate. So we should be patient.
I guess they can’t be the heroes without having designated bad guys. Their narrative requires a one-size-fits-all caricature of anyone that disagrees with them. They are all about dialogue, unless it involves the actual exchange of ideas with people who disagree with them. Opposing points of view can never be weighed by considering the merit of their “opponent’s” argument. Any criticism of the Pope’s statements or actions is automatically invalidated simply because he is the infallible Oracle channeling the Holy Spirit. Some nice theology that is. It should be no surprise that many of his statements generate so much confusion and consternation among the rigid-minded deplorables. We haven’t been sufficiently enlightened by attending Fordham or reading McBrien, Rahner and Kung. I believe that there are hundreds of bishops, thousands of priests and millions of lay faithful that are very concerned about the current pontificate. Most respectfully choose to remain silent for fear of causing/fomenting more division. Some have cautiously commented with great restraint. Many more have never commented publicly. Most of the faithful that have grave concerns are not even so-called “traditionalists” . The usual suspects (a portion of whom Fr. has listed above) are seemingly oblivious to the fact that those of us who have concerns about the current pontificate are not “opponents ” of the Pope. Strawmen and ad hominem attacks are the tried-and-true tactics of prideful progressives. They are true elitists. If only we were as enlightened as they are and were better informed, surely we would realize that they are right! This is the condescending perspective of such progressives. Poor ignorant slobs that we are, we don’t even appreciate or acknowledge their divine mandate to transform the world and the Church. The great majority of faithful Catholics are indeed invisible to them. This is just as well; the fact that we love the papacy, Our Lord and His Church is irrelevant to them. It doesn’t fit their simplistic, self-aggrandizing narrative.
Are these guys the “gatekeepers of Hell”?
Kent : not yet.
The threat of “schism” isn’t just an attempt to provoke an intemperate response but also it is a wedge to get opponents to engage in a Hegalian dialog of incrementalism. The situation appears to be loose loose…refrain from dialogue and be a schismatic or engage in dialogue that’s process will, eventually, have you accepting their positions and goals.
The way forward is to recognize that they are trying to get you to play a game by their rules, which are ever-changing and then don’t play the game. It is not about remaining separate or engaging in incremental dialogue, rather about preaching Christ crucified.
All these men are nothing but professional trolls whose sole interest is to harass, offend and annoy those who do not share their heterodox religious views, not to share the Gospel or win converts. Best to avoid them when possible, but when they tell a blatant lie, one should confront them with the truth, like Fr. Pius Pietrzyk OP confronted Beans when he claimed that there was a rupture between Church doctrine pre and post Vatican II (noting that same position had been rejected by the CDF and put Beans in the same category as Sedevacantists) or the Catholic Herald confronted Beans again with his outrageous accusation of Schism against Cardinal Burke, which he at first claimed was a misquote but then could not refute after evidence was shown.
The schism is already there. The Modernists broke with Eternal Rome, the One True Faith, a long time ago. It just so happens that they have a series of sympathetic figures in high positions. Perhaps these figures are not full-fledged Modernists themselves, but at the least afraid to make the Modernist Elite (who control the Curia, the seminaries, the bishops’ conferences, and yes, the wealth) upset.
What is happening, it seems, is that not content with their OWN schism, they want to bring everyone else down with them. So they gaslight us all into thinking that it is heresy to oppose Francis, into thinking that every word Francis utters is “Magesterial”. Heck, they’ve even confused orthodox Catholics, who SHOULD know better, as to what constitutes “infallibility”, to the point of contemplating the error of Vatican I.
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Kent Wendler,
We have a reasonable hope that there are no gates around Hell.
After the plane interview, I knew the recent homo chorus of ” You Schismatics ! “was orchestrated from the top ( no surprise) to prepare the eventual narrative. This has been foretold by God to us through various avenues. The only surprise for us is that it is actually occurring during our lifetimes. We, who hold fast to the faith of our fathers, will be marginalized and then given a stark choice with no middle ground for escape; a route cutoff which was so readily available in the past for the ostensibly practical and wise human that secretly walked between two paths -with the wetted- finger in the air . So be it. We will not follow the spiritually blind to our own damnation for we have been warned.
Really? Blessed John Henry CARDINAL Newman said that the voice of the people was the voice of the infallible Church? Why did he become a Catholic then and not a Presbyterian?
I’m reminded of an excerpt that came to me through Digby: (with some Elizabethan spelling)
“That the voice of the common people is the voice of God is the common voice of the people; yet it is as full of falsehood as of commonness. For who sees not these blacke-mouthed hownds upon the meere scent of opinion, as freely spend their mouthes hunting counter, or like Æcton’s doggs, in chasing of an innocent man to death, as if they followed the chase of truth itself in a fresh scent? Who observes not that the voice of the people, yea of that people that voiced themselves the people of God, did prosecute the God of all creation with a common voice: ‘He is guilty of death.'”