Michael Sean Winters (aka the Wile E. Coyote of the catholic Left, aka Madame Defarge the Tricoteuse) is worried. He has called to the US Bishops to stop the schism!
In his latest panic attack at Fishwrap, Winters identifies several groups which have him pointing with his knitting needles at the guillotine: LifeSite News, Church Militant, Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Sophia Press, EWTN, etc.
Promoters of schism, all! They must be suppressed!
The hypocrisy of a writer for the Fishwrap begging the US bishops to denounce the nefarious (he likes that word) machinations of promoters of schism is amusing.
Winters receives a paycheck from the National catholic Reporter, which was required by the bishop of Kansas City, where it is published, to remove the word “Catholic” from its title. That dissident publication flipped him the bird and continued in its obstinate defiance of the bishop’s authority.
In contrast, when the Archbishop of Detroit asked Winter’s nemesis Michael Voris not to use the word Catholic in his organization’s original name, Real Catholic TV, Voris obeyed and changed the name to Church Militant.
When will Winters summon the NCR to the obedience Voris manifested not in words but in deeds?
Winters manifests a dark cruelty whenever he wants free speech suppressed. For example, he thinks that converts shouldn’t be allowed to express opinions because they are often conservative. HERE He fantasizes about watching those with whom he disagrees be guillotined. HERE He demanded that Chad Pecknold lose his livelihood because of an opinion he didn’t agree with. HERE
In the first line of his piece, Winters uses the phrase “a modest proposal“, invoking the idea of the poor Irish selling their children to be eaten. Jonathan Swift’s essay was dark satire, of course, but into the darkness is where Winters goes when it comes to objects of his disapproval.
In demanding that the bishops of these USA crack down on people he doesn’t like, the panicky Winters wrote:
Changes in technology allow these groups to spread their divisiveness, so the seeds of schism might sprout more quickly and more comprehensively than before.
This from a guy who writes for the perennially divisive, perpetually dissident, National Schismatic Reporter, which uses all manner of technology to spread its errors.
Pot, meet Kettle.
Winters has called for the US bishops to suppress those on whom he is tattling.
I, too, call upon the US bishops.
I call upon the US bishops to pray for the NCR and all who contribute to it. HERE (and always linked on the top menu).
Dear St. Joseph, Terror of Demons and Protector of Holy Church, Chaste Guardian of Our Lord and His Mother, hear our urgent prayer and swiftly intercede with our Savior, whom as a loving father you defended so diligently, that He will pour abundant graces upon the staff of that organ of dissent the National catholic Reporter so that they will either embrace orthodox doctrine concerning faith and morals or that all their efforts will promptly fail and come to their just end. Amen.
Before Vatican 2, one can envision individual bishops—many of them—slapping down any publication as noisily heterodox as the “Reporter” that had the temerity to call itself the National Catholic anything, by enjoining its distribution in their parishes and its reading by the faithful under pain of mortal sin.
Save for one bishop more than fifty years ago, no postconciliar ordinary has to our knowledge uttered a public peep against this pestilence. Is it pusillanimity that keeps them silent in this matter where they fear not to squawk on many others outside their competence? Or are they tacitly on board with its agenda?
Oh yes, let’s do have a talk about the S-word.
Winters is just jealous, annoyed, envious that the impact and subscription rates of all those entities are rising. Simple attention envy.
MSW exhibits an astonishing lack of self-awareness. And the propensity to projection! Zeitgeist addicts are subject to that. It appears to be of epidemic proportions among that set. There are a large number of sites, thank Heaven, which I’m sure he finds threatening and which surely deserve to receive his counter-intuitive endorsement. He surely does have his knicker in a twist, the poor thing.
When I first read this post’s title I looked upward, expecting to see the skies swarming with porcine aviators.
Alas, nay. Fr. Z and Michael Sean Winters do not quite agree. Our zany pal Wile E. Coyote is suggesting another Acme stunt: Lawnmowers for Bishops. He beseeches the U.S. bishops to mow down the sprouting seeds of heresy lest the fruited plains turn into a chanting, ad orientem wilderness. Oh well, pigs with goggles and scarves would have been excellent.
On the other hand, mowing the lawn is a bourgeois, cisgendered, heteronormative,toxically masculine activity. Perhaps there’s hope for Winters after all.
[another Acme stunt: Lawnmowers for Bishops. ]
Mike
While the pusillanimity of many of our bishops is undeniable, more than one bishop has ordered the NCR to cease and desist their use of the name Catholic. Most recently, Bishop Finn issued the order shortly before their orchestrated campaign against him that, with the complicity of Cardinal O’Malley, eventually forced his resignation from Kansas City St
Joseph.
Wihout otherwise commenting on MSW’s critique of it, I’d like to inform Mr. Winters (since I’m reasonably certain he’ll read this) that LifeSiteNews is Canadian, so he’s addressing the wrong bishops. [Good point.]
Heretics and progressives are darling, what they can’t control, they work to shut down. If that requires a little tattling and lots of whining, they are right there. And there is Jim Martin, pointing his bony finger in tweets, which I can’t share because I don’t tweet. But there is evidence this has an effect on mainstream Catholics, I saw trads called “idiots” and other names, and you might be disheartened to read how many Catholics are all on board the Francis train. All it took was for some dog whistling by their leaders to get them angry. They are now getting ginned up against their fellow Catholics by the likes of Jim Martin and Winters. The idea of heretics calling the faithful the cause of schism is bizarre, but they’re desperate. Even pitting one group of Catholics against another is not too low for them. Nothing is too low for them, but we knew this already.
Play here: Disco Inferno
It is customary that prayers promoted for public use be approved by ecclesiastical authority. Has the prayer cited by Father Zuhlsdorf received such approbation from his own ordinary or from the ordinary of the place where he lives? The National Catholic Reporter has a long history of acting without ecclesiastical authority (no doubt because its editors truly believe, perhaps wrongly, that they are doing the Lord’s work). Such actions without ecclesiastical approbation are not a pattern to be mimicked by others (also, no doubt, believing that they are doing the Lord’s work).
[This prayer can be prayed privately. It isn’t intended for public, liturgical cult. And I didn’t just cite it, I wrote it.]
Kathleen10: Good point. It appears Fr. James Martin, MS Winters, et al seek to turn “traditional” into a Hot-button Word to stigmatize Catholics. The goal, as you know, is for “c”atholics to have their Glorious Democratic People’s Church.
Of course, if one is Catholic then one is traditional. That said, sometimes the “SuperTrads” could dial it down a notch.
By the way, good one with Disco Inferno.
Kathleen10: “…and you might be disheartened to read how many Catholics are all on board the Francis train.” That’s a curious statement. Can you say more about what you mean?
“Even pitting one group of Catholics against another is not too low for them. Nothing is too low for them, but we knew this already.” But–you also do this. In this post, you were pitting Catholics against each other, no?
Indeed, the “pitting against”–from both sides–has become hostile, toxic. It is so rampant that I’m wondering if the Catholic Church is where I can remain and be faithful to God and live the Gospels. I keep returning to Micah’s words: “…what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8) And Jesus’ words: “Love your enemies.” How is it, even, that Catholic have made enemies of each other?
[There is also what is incumbent on us by the virtue of religion.]
RLseven: Kathleen10 can speak for herself, if she wishes.
However, note the derogatory remarks made by Francis and the problematic, to put it lightly, writings. Note Spadaro et al. Also, see Luke 12:51, Matthew 7:15-16, and Matthew 16:3-4.
Hang in there, the Barque of Peter usually experiences rough seas. Cheers.
RLseven, this is the rub. The Catholic Church, the Mystical Body, is the only place in which anyone who has heard the whole good news can remain and be faithful to God and live the Gospels. When some of our brethren hate and condemn us, we participate in the sufferings of Christ who was mocked and killed. We do not choose our Church, He has chosen us. John 6:68.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
But Father! But Father! What is the Latin for the prayer you composed?
The only thing that rag is good for is poop-paper for caged birds.
RLseven, the mainstream church has become a mystery to me, and it was all I knew until about 5 years ago. So much has changed. Watching things unfold in this papacy, the church, has been an unfortunate education, but I can’t deny the evidence of what we see and hear, after comparing it to what has been understood about Christianity and Catholicism up to now. Yet we have our fellow Catholics continuing to live as if there has been no change, they talk now about Francis as if they were talking about Pope JPII, or Benedict XVI, but what Francis is teaching and encouraging cannot even be compared to what those popes taught and encouraged. How can this be so?? They are earnest Catholics, certainly they care and love Christ and the church. How are they living in a place where nothing has changed, all is well, and Francis is just the next in line of Peter, doing a great job? Half of me wants to help them wake up and half of me wants to have whatever they’re drinking. That was my meaning, referencing being on “the Francis train”.
For my part, I am neither “for” Pope Francis nor “against” him. The Church is not a sporting match, and I can scarcely be bothered to cheer for one team–or player–in real sports anyway.
There are things Pope Francis has done, actually and apparently, that I wish had been otherwise. Frankly, that’s also true of virtually every other pope I’ve studied at any length, including Sts. Pius X and Pius V, who were excellent popes. Naturally, there are also things they’ve all done that I’m glad were not otherwise.
I really wish this pro/anti-Francis nonsense would go away, as it’s really just unedifying, un-Catholic, untheological, harmfully divisive, untraditional, illiberal, regressive nonsense. It turns discussions of the Church into matters of sport… or, worse yet, politics. Talk about profaning the sacred.
RLseven:
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If you want to followup with Semper Gumby’s reference about derogatory remarks you will find one stop shopping at the web site “The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults.” He is the true master of the ad hominem retort as a substitute for any real argument of spiritual substance. Most of his critics are given the prophet Jeremiah treatment, by being subjected to a full immersion mud bath.
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In addition to the Bible passages cited by Semper Gumby you should also add in Luke 11. Pay particular attention to the woes that start on verse 37. God didn’t sent prophets to Israel to pin a medal on their chests for being too holy. They were drill instructors sent by God to call them to account for their spiritual laxity. You should also read the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation. Most of the letters contain rebukes. In the letter to the church in Ephesus there is a warning to repent. The punishment for the failure to repent is the the removal of their lampstand, the lampstand being their church. It would appear that the declining Church membership is the implementation of the Ephesus removal of lampstands.
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In the Old Testament there are clear passages where the coming of Christ and a new covenant is foretold by the prophets. Christ’s New Covenant is eternal. The Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost, so after Pentecost God was all in. There are no further Persons of the Trinity to send to propose a radical new Church, or a radical new dispensation. In fact the New Testament contains warnings to hold fast to the faith against impostors. In New Testament times God allowed Jerusalem to be put to the sword, and the Temple to be destroyed. He has also allowed the Catholic Church to become a divided kingdom, no different than faithless Israel. The kings and people of ancient Israel became faithless when they became worldly.
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In the modern Church disputes Pope Francis is the one who is the closest Catholic equivalent to the role of Caiaphas in New Testament times. Christ was the outsider, with no formal connection to the religious hierarchy, or their power structure.
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I hope this posts OK. I can’t get the PREVIEW to work on my PC on any of my web browsers.
Mike: I have seen NCR sitting on coffee table in the waiting area outside my parish priest’s office….
I used to remove multiple copies of NCR from my university parish and dump them in the recycle bin. I was accused of theft and when I brought it up in confession the priest would not acknowledge that act as sinful. Another priest told me it was an act of charity.
Now the homosexual pastor is gone and there are no longer copies available in the parish.
GregB: “The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults” –Who puts their time and attention toward something so unsourced and hostile– toward a Pope, no less!! It reeks of spiritual immaturity. [What also reeks of spiritual immaturity is refusing to recognize a problem.] As far as rebuking goes, there is enough going around for everyone. The Pope rebukes someone, he’s a bad guy. Someone rebukes the Pope, they’re a prophet.
I concur with HiddenOne: “I really wish this pro/anti-Francis nonsense would go away, as it’s really just unedifying, un-Catholic, untheological, harmfully divisive, untraditional, illiberal, regressive nonsense. It turns discussions of the Church into matters of sport… or, worse yet, politics. Talk about profaning the sacred.”
GregB: Well said.
Hidden One wrote:
“I really wish this pro/anti-Francis nonsense would go away, as it’s really just unedifying, un-Catholic, untheological, harmfully divisive, untraditional, illiberal, regressive nonsense. It turns discussions of the Church into matters of sport… or, worse yet, politics. Talk about profaning the sacred.”
There are multiple problems with this Pontificate, “wishing” it away is futile. This is definitely not sports, this is for eternity. If you are disgusted by politics you should be disgusted by efforts to transform Christ’s Church into a Leftist NGO. As for “profaning the sacred” read, for example, the Amazon Synod IL.
RLseven: You are shooting the messenger. Click on the quotes for the source, it’s a lengthy collection of Francis in his own words. The Vatican Radio sources are apparently broken links. As for “hostile”- precisely.
Group A attacks Group B.
Group A mouths pieties to unity and compassion that they aren’t actually following.
Group B points out that Group A is attacking them (and violating Group A’s own stated beliefs).
Group B does not pretend to favor “unity” and “compassion” over being honest about the situation.
People who don’t want to have to side with Group B claim that Group B is committing the same wrong as Group A.