For those who don’t believe that Francis said that there should be legal same-sex unions.

For those who don’t believe that Francis said that there should be legal same-sex unions.

UPDATE:

As it turns out, I think we have an explanation of the TIMING of the release of this documentary in these USA (next Sunday).   The trailer is blatantly …

anti-Trump.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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43 Comments

  1. SimonK says:

    I have always tried really hard to think the best of the Holy Father, and to defend him from others who I thought were criticising him too hastily.

    But what he is doing here is a big mistake. I know he is doing what he thinks is the just and caring thing, but he is only hearing one side of the story. It isn’t justice, it isn’t caring, when there are a lot of people out there struggling with disordered desires, and rather than caring for them, and listening to their needs, and trying to help them, he is basically telling them that they should give up on their struggle.

    I hope the next Pope will realise what a mistake this is, and walk it back.

  2. Gab says:

    Conclusion

    11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.”

    The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience of March 28, 2003, approved the present Considerations, adopted in the Ordinary Session of this Congregation, and ordered their publication.

    Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 3, 2003, Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and his Companions, Martyrs.

    Joseph Card. Ratzinger
    Prefect

    Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
    Titular Archbishop of Sila
    Secretary

    *deep breath* God’s got a plan. God is still in charge. God has the big picture, we don’t. Nothing happens without God’s permissive or positive Will.
    (Repeat often).

  3. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    Francis has, in a spiritual way, demonstrated to me the sort of demoralization that the periodically beaten son of a drunken father must experience.

  4. excalibur says:

    This most recent scandal given by Pope Francis is a tool for the devil.

    He is now the Pope of no authority.

    Just believe in Jesus as Savior, let Him work out the problems in the Church, fear not. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.

  5. Priam1184 says:

    This drunken party is going to end someday. And man will there be a nasty hangover…

  6. Fulco One Eye says:

    I wish it were “simply” a matter of calling the Pope names or giving our layman’s opinion on this latest and most dramatically erroneous statement. My layman’s opinion is of importance only to me and Almighty God. But what about the clergy? Most will either agree or keep silent. Who will speak out against this serious error? Will there be action taken against them. So many of us have taken action to withhold our financial support to the Church establishment and will continue to do so. That seems to not matter to these ideologues. Other than A Vigano and B Schneider, who will speak out forcefully and clearly? B Bobby B will do a dance around it. My bishop is a sycophant of the Pope and a protege of Cupich and so a moral nonentity. Who will stand up for the Truth?

  7. DBuote says:

    Can you imagine a situation where a filmmaker is given an all access pass to the pope? We know what to expect from the Holy Father, but who else thought this would be a good idea??

  8. Midwest St. Michael says:

    Here you go, FOE:

    https://www.dioceseofprovidence.org/news/statement-of-bishop-thomas-tobin-on-the-comments-of-pope-francis-regarding-civil-unions

    Statement of Bishop Thomas Tobin on the comments of Pope Francis Regarding Civil Unions

    October 21, 2020

    The Holy Father’s apparent support for the recognition of civil unions for same-sex couples needs to be clarified. The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions. The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships. Individuals with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God and must have their personal human rights and civil rights recognized and protected by law. However, the legalization of their civil unions, which seek to simulate holy matrimony, is not admissible.

  9. Charles E Flynn says:

    @Midwest St. Michael,

    Francis X. Rocca reports on the Vatican for the Wall Street Journal. In his first piece about this new story, he quotes three “conservatives” for reaction: Bishop Thomas Tobin, the Rev. Gerald Murray, and Dr. Robert Royal. I think we know who will be on Raymond Arroyo’s program “The World Over” tomorrow night.

  10. excalibur says:

    Midwest St. Michael, thanks.

  11. ChesterFrank says:

    Yes, you cant miss the timing. Why doesn’t the Holy Father simply have a Biden Harris logo embroidered on the back of his chasuble ? Then all of the money wasted on that film could have been directly be given to the poor. I think this papacy is addicted to graphics known as “Poverty porn.”

  12. APX says:

    DBuote,

    I came across an article about this film you may find interesting.

    https://www.albertaprimetimes.com/world-news/francis-becomes-1st-pope-to-endorse-same-sex-civil-unions-2810104

    “Afineevsky [the director who is also a homosexual] had remarkable access to cardinals, the Vatican television archives and the pope himself. He said he negotiated his way in through persistence, and deliveries of Argentine mate tea and Alfajores cookies that he got to the pope via well-connected Argentines in Rome.

    “Listen, when you are in the Vatican, the only way to achieve something is to break the rule and then to say, ‘I’m sorry,’” Afineevsky said in an interview.

    The director worked official and unofficial channels starting in 2018, and ended up so close to Francis by the end of the project that he showed him the movie on his iPad in August.”

  13. Diane says:

    I am sad. So very sad.

  14. Gab says:

    Diane says:
    ”I am sad. So very sad.”

    Me too. But our fight is not with the Pope. Our fight is with the devil.

  15. Clinton R. says:

    The Lavender Mafia has a death grip on the Vatican. They got their man in Francis and now he is carrying out their agenda. What was once hidden in the shadows is now in plain sight; the celebration of debauchery. This pontiff called the Virgin Mary a liar, called for the reception of Holy Communion by those who were divorced and remarried outside of annulment, and now this. The enemies of the Church celebrate once again.

  16. Semper Gumby says:

    Quotes from the trailer:

    “The coronavirus pandemic has taught us we have failed to care for the earth.”

    Agit-prop regarding the Wuhan Virus.

    “A person who only thinks of building walls and not of building bridges is not Christian.” [accompanied by images of Pres. Trump and a HuffPo article.]

    The Scapegoat, the Other is identified.

    Testimony from sycophantic subordinates:

    “This is a man who’s opened his heart to the hearts of all humanity. This is a man who cries with humanity, who laughs with humanity, who suffers with humanity.”

    “I think God made him experience what people experienced.”

    Narcissism:

    “I am their voice, but it’s not something I put on, it comes natural.”

    The agit-prop, the Scapegoat, the sycophantic quotes, the dramatic music, the cheering and adulatory crowds, the camera angles, the Leader as Savior. There are many parallels between this documentary trailer and Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.

  17. Semper Gumby says:

    The director of “Francesco” is Evgeny Afineevsky, winner of the 2020 Catholics in Media Associates Social Justice Award. He is a U.S. citizen born in the Soviet Union in 1972.

    Wikipedia: “Afineevsky’s filmmaking career began as a teenager when he won the First Prize for Best Documentary in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, and was invited to participate in the Black Sea International Film Festival hosted by the USSR Pioneer Camp Orlyonok in Krasnodar region, Russia.”

    He is reportedly a homosexual (relevant due to the documentary’s content) and his social media is notable for its anti-Trump stance.

    Here’s an Evgeny Afineevsky tweet from April 7: “Alec Baldwin says Trump is the ‘virus’ infecting the US”

  18. Spinmamma says:

    Truly demoralizing. What are faithful Catholics to do? Archbishop Vigano had some very sobering things to say about this and its possible consequences. A rock and a hard place.

  19. James C says:

    Well, one of the director’s previous films is called, “Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!”

    Says it all.

  20. jn says:

    Re what the Pope said, see the thoughts shared by me (‘jn’) in the comment section below the article at https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/10/21/what-did-pope-francis-say-about-civil-unions-a-cna-explainer/ , where a ‘perhaps-he-has-this-in-mind’ explanation is attempted.

    That Biden and the Democrats are pro-“LGBT” is very clear. But then, remember that the Republicans are not too far behind on that bandwagon. Indeed, Trump deems it an honor to be hailed as “the most pro-gay President” – see the string of revealing citations in my comment toward the bottom of https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/10/16/biden-backs-transgender-rights-for-children-during-town-hall/

    And on a side-note, remember that even one of Trump’s SCOTUS picks is not averse to legislating from the bench – see https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/15/gorsuch-helps-transform-the-supreme-court-into-the-supreme-legislature-on-lgbt-rights/

  21. gael eigin says:

    Father Z,
    I’m not taking a position directly on whether PF has said something wildly inappropriate or ill-considered. Lord knows…

    I’m wondering whether there hasn’t been some manipulation by the producers: in the Spanish that’s subtitled “a civil union law”, PF says “una ley de convivencia civil”.

    Is that not something like “a law of civil coexistence”? Wouldn’t “civil union” require the Spanish wording “unión civil”?

    I’m not a concern troll; I love your site. Question: with the (presumably) correct translation, could PF be taken to be responding to a (possibly weaselly) question about the exclusion of homosexuals from the families or communities in which they grew up?

    Is more of the transcript available that would disprove this hypothesis. I’m being asked about this and I don’t want to add to any confusion.

  22. Macarius says:

    Usquequo, Domine?

  23. gael eigin says:

    I found a URL that likely tells against the suggestion I just posted:

    https://www.registrocivil.cl/PortalOI/acuerdoUnionCivil/acuerdoUnionCivil.html

    The relevant line is:
    Los contrayentes que celebren la Unión Civil pasan a ser convivientes civiles.

    Hmmmm. It’s from Chile, right next to Argentina.

  24. Grabski says:

    There is no reason -NONE! – for any Pope to speak out on secular law

    Unless he wants to encourage the fallen away and demoralize the faithful

  25. Grumpy Beggar says:

    It’s good to see Bishop Thomas Tobin’s statement appear on these threads more than once. I’m citing his concluding sentence again here to illustrate something:
    However, the legalization of their civil unions, which seek to simulate holy matrimony, is not admissible.”
    For any fellow members of our Fr.Z-combox conglomerate who may not be aware , a statement congruent with Bishop Tobin’s concluding sentence was made some 8 years ago by a pioneer of gay rights in Australia – Professor (now Emeritus I believe) of Politics Dennis Altman of La Trobe University. Professor Altman – the son of Jewish refugees has written some 14 books to date (none of which I’ll be reading any time soon due to subject matter) and has an extensive and impressive humanitarian rap sheet. Yet despite his being listed as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever in July of 2006 and being appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008 , Prof. Altman goes on record in 2012 as saying that the gay marriage campaign is self-indulgent crap :

    La Trobe University professor Dennis Altman, a gay rights pioneer, has described the gay marriage campaign as “self indulgent crap…I mean people around the world are being tortured for being homosexual…and people here carry on as if [gays] not being allowed to marry was a huge abuse of civil rights.”

    I have to admire the guy for being able to see where the true need really is and being able to trim away the superfluous.

    Now if Bishop Tobin, who reflects the correct Catholic position, and Prof. Altman who is dedicated to the genuine needs and protection of same sex attracted people are basically saying the same thing – namely, that same-sex marriage is neither admissible nor necessary, well then precisely whom do these confused misguided Catholic advocates of same sex marriage such as Fr. James Martin S.J. think they are helping ?

    They aren’t helping anyone.

    I wonder if we have finally been given a nice working model of the “empty bombast” St. Peter prophesied about in 2 Peter 2:18 ?

  26. Grumpy Beggar says:

    Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce – founders of the luxury fashion house/brand Dolce & Gabbana are openly homosexual. They lived as a couple for roughly 23 years until 2005.
    In 2015 they sparked a global controversy by daring to speak out in defense of marriage and the family. Their comments additionally drew the ire of Elton John who in retaliation (can we use the word vendetta here ?), instructed anyone who would listen to him to boycot Dolce & Gabbana ( Gee . . .talk about intolerant).

    Here are a few beautiful excerpts of what Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana had to say – taken from the National Catholic Register article Dolce and Gabbana :’Children Should Have a Mother and a Father’

    “The family is not a fad,” said co-founder of the fashion empire, Stefano Gabbana, in an interview with the Italian magazine Panorama. “In it, there is a supernatural sense of belonging.”

    Sharing this view with his business and former romantic partner, Domenico Dolce told the magazine: “We didn’t invent the family ourselves.”
    Dolce and Gabbana, who are openly homosexual, went on to say that children have the right to be raised by a mother and a father, and they condemned the use of artificial means of conception, such as in vitro fertilization.
    The Italian-born fashion duo also spoke out against the use of surrogate mothers by same-sex couples who are seeking to have a child, referring to the practice as “wombs for rent.”

    Dolce referred to those conceived through artificial means as “chemical children: synthetic children; uterus’ for rent; semen chosen from a catalog. And later you go and explain to these children who the mother is.” To procreate should be an “act of love,” Dolce continued, adding that psychologists today are not ready to come face-to-face with the effects of “these experiments.”

    “We, a gay couple, say No to gay adoptions. Enough chemical children and wombs for rent. Children should have a mother and a father,” the pair told the magazine.

    During Friday’s interview, Dolce said that the issue of family is “not a question of religion or social status. There are no two ways about it: You are born, and there is a father and a mother. Or at least there should be.”

    I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be sooo apropos if we could somehow invite these guys to come and wake up or re-educate so many of our fumbling Catholics who are in favor of gay marriage . Some of us -like Fr. James Martin S.J., just don’t get it. These guys do.

  27. David Spaulding says:

    Does the Pope dislike Americans? It feels like that to me, like there is no small amount of South American distaste for the United States. The prejudice can be really deeply rooted and there are many in South and Central America who just don’t like us. There are strong justifications for this but it can be hard to take from the Pope. It just feels like he doesn’t like us and that makes it really hard to connect.

  28. The Astronomer says:

    The late Rev. Dr. Malachi Martin, in his 1992 book “The Keys of this Blood,” foresaw what the consequences of a papacy like the current one would likely entail. Father Z, I ask your indulgence in permitting me to post a section of the book’s Chapter 35:

    Non-Catholics as such and non-Christians as such can make equal claims to have the means of salvation within their own religion—or “way of life,” if they happen to be religionless. For all of us—Catholics, non-Catholics and non-Christians—are just pilgrims to the same goal, although approaching it by different roads. Second, in the Conciliar Church, the source of religious enlightenment, guidance and authority is the local “community of faith.” Correct beliefs and correct moral practice no longer come from a hierarchic body of bishops submissive to the central teaching authority of one man, the Bishop of Rome. Third, the worldwide clusters of “communities of faith” have as their prime function to cooperate with “mankind” in building and assuring the success of world peace and world reform in the use of earth’s resources so as to eliminate economic oppression and political imperialism. Fourth, the former Roman Catholic Church rules of moral behavior about life issues—conception, marriage, death, sexuality—must be brought into fraternal alignment with the outlook, desires and practices of the world at large. Otherwise, how can members of the Church claim to have opened up to their human brothers and sisters?

    With the slow leavening of the bishops everywhere by the “spirit of Vatican II,” with no countervailing stance adopted by papal Rome, it is inevitable that what we now can see clearly in a restricted number of cardinals will permeate a greater and greater number. There is very little doubt in anybody’s mind that cardinals such as Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, Basil Hume of Westminster, Godfried Danneels of Belgium, Paulo Evaristo Arns of S?o Paulo, Roger Etchegeray of France, are partisans of “the spirit of Vatican II.” There are, to be sure, cardinals alive today who, together with more cardinals yet to be created by Pope John Paul II, will elect the pope who succeeds him. All will come into the next Conclave from a Church structure in which they have functioned for at least twenty-five years and where they not only did not curb or combat or even correct the aberrancies of the “spirit of Vatican II,” but fomented it passively (by doing nothing) or actively (because they shared that same “spirit”). They will come from dioceses where the vast majority of bishops will know nothing and will want to know nothing that doesn’t cohere with the “spirit of Vatican II.” The parishes and dioceses behind them are already thoroughly leavened by that same “spirit.” Barring a last-minute miracle, their choice of papal candidate will be one of their number, whose papal policy will be to crown and confirm the official existence of the “spirit of Vatican II.” Such a cardinal validly elected as pope will have as a principle of action what Popes Paul VI and John Paul II apparently adopted as a temporary expedient: not to exercise the now outmoded Petrine privilege of office.

    A future new pope’s deficiency in his high office will be the result of a conviction that the original papal and Petrine Office as practiced by the Roman popes up to the last third of the twentieth century was really nothing more than a time-conditioned result of cultural modes extending way back hundreds of years; and that now is the time to downgrade its importance in order to free the “spirit of Vatican II” to mold the Church in an image that will suit the progressive mind of a new and far different age. Roman Catholics will then have the spectacle of a pope validly elected who cuts the entire visible body of the Church loose from the traditional unity and the papacy-oriented apostolic structure that the Church has hitherto always believed and taught was divinely established. The shudder that will shake the Roman Catholic body in that day will be the shudder of its death agony. For its pains will be from within itself, orchestrated by its leaders and its members. No outside enemy will have brought this about. Many will accept the new regime. Many will resist. All will be fragmented. There will be no one on earth to hold the fractionating members of the visible Roman Catholic body together as a living compact organization. Men will then be able to ask for the first time in the history of the Church: Where is the visible body of the Church Christ founded? But there will be none visible. The Church Christ found will be in the same condition as on the day that the Apostle Philip encountered the Ethiopian official on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza and, finding that this man had received the grace to believe in Jesus, baptized him at a wayside well. After that Philip disappeared, and the official continued on his way. But now he was a living member of the Church of Christ, a participant in the Mystical Body of Christ, as surely as any Christian of a thousand years later who was baptized in one of Europe’s cathedral baptisteries and had his name registered as an official member of the visible Church structure to be found everywhere around the cathedral. But for that Ethiopian official there was no visible Church structure. Actually, by that simple ceremony of entering the wayside stream with the Apostle Philip and accepting baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that official had joined an underground, the nascent Christian underground, against which already the first pogroms had been launched by the resident Jewish authorities headed by a fiery rabbinical zealot named Saul of Tarsus, who, in the words of the same chapter of the Acts of the Apostles that tells of the Ethiopian’s baptism, “wreaked havoc on the Church, entering into every house, and dragging men and women out and throwing them into prison.” For however or wherever the Church founded by Christ survives and lives on, it is sure that it will live on; the whole brute strength of Hell will not prevail against it. And the successor of Peter, whoever he is during those dire days, will finally be converted and will, as Jesus foretold after his resurrection, restore and bring back to spiritual strength the faith of his bishops and people in the Church of Christ.

    This was prophetically written almost thirty years ago and we see the birth pangs occurring as we speak.

  29. DBuote says:

    Sadly, not surprising.

  30. Benedict Joseph says:

    This point of view has been expressed by this individual before, long ago, when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He did not receive the requisite rebuke from his superior at that time, how can we expect him to behave correctly now? Apparently his election to his current office provided him the approbation to say and do whatever when a notion enters his mind.
    So much could be said, but perhaps it can be summed up with this. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not the problem, he is merely an acute symptom. And while we whine here [not unjustifiably] let us recall our Chinese brothers and sisters who are enduring the most startling betrayal by the current pontificate — it is simply unimaginable.
    A slap in the face cannot be compared to a knife in the back.

  31. jn says:

    And for the record, there are other doubts about what the Pope actually said – see https://wherepeteris.com/those-pope-francis-quotes-video-editing-and-media-controversy/

    #fundamental-principle-of-natural-justice: Audi-alteram-partem >> (never rush to judgment but) hear the other side (too)

  32. NOCatholic says:

    @astronomer: Thanks for the post.

    I have to point out that the “spirit of Vatican II” (better named the zeitgeist or “spirit of the age”) does not authentically come from Vatican II, as the teachings and actions of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both active participants in that council, demonstrate. John Paul the Great spend much time dealing with theological excesses in the wake of the Council, as did Benedict similarly for liturgical excesses.

    The culture of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church had problems that preceded Vatican II and which definitely affected how the actions of Vatican II were implemented. that’s why, for example, we are dealing with things like a new liturgy that went far beyond what Sacrosanctum concilium ever envisioned.

  33. Semper Gumby says:

    Acton Institute is helpful regarding the topic of “papal infallibility”:

    When most folks (Catholic and non-Catholic alike) hear “papal infallibility”, they often think “Catholics have to believe everything the pope says. They have to believe he’s never wrong.” Except that sometimes he is wrong, and that idea is too.

    Being selected pope does not, however, make one perfect. Peter is a terrific example; after all, he denied Christ. One needn’t dig too far into papal history to find scoundrels, scalawags and sinners.
    https://blog.acton.org/archives/50342-papal-infallibility-its-probably-not-what-you-think.html

    A Catholic can make distinctions, and, with Faith and Reason, with Spiritual and Situational Awareness, view Leftist agit-prop as a menace or political quackery, narcissism as counterproductive or repellent, and a Pachamama coin as globalist zealotry or wicked. Christus Vincit.

  34. Charles E Flynn says:

    From Statement on the Declarations of Pope Francis Regarding Civil Unions
    ON OCT 22, 2020

    It is a source of deepest sadness and pressing pastoral concern that the private opinions reported with so much emphasis by the press and attributed to Pope Francis do not correspond to the constant teaching of the Church, as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and is guarded, protected and interpreted by the Magisterium. Equally sad and concerning is the turmoil, confusion, and error they cause among the Catholic faithful, as is the scandal they cause, in general, by giving the totally false impression that the Catholic Church has had a change of course, that is, has changed its perennial teaching regarding such fundamental and critical questions.

    Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke
    Rome, October 22, 2020

  35. Adelle Cecilia says:

    This priest’s homily is very straight forward and helpful: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=LV5Fb4Gi3yY#dialog

    Though, I felt bad for the teary-eyed thought of, “here it is. We are going to have to be martyrs.”

  36. donato2 says:

    Cardinal Mueller gave a strong interview to the Corriere della Sera. He says, basically, that what the Pope said is just wrong — that the Church can’t recognize civil unions — and asks why the Vatican has not given any explanation for the Pope’s comments. The interview is in today’s online edition, but you need to have subscribed to read it.

  37. mddelala says:

    Just a quick note on the subtitles. Francis’s words are “lo que tenemos que hacer es una ley de convivencia civil. Tienen derecho a estar cubiertos legalmente”.

    “Ley de convivencia civil” can be objectively translated as “civil coexistence law” as well as a “civil union law”. In spanish, the word “convivientes” is used to denote those who live together not being married, and can also be applied to homosexual couples. However, the word “convivencia” can also denote the social act of living in society.

    Having said the above, it’s been clarified by those closest to the Pope that he actually was in favor of a civil union law in favor of homosexual couples. Wether in this precise context he was referring precissely to that or to a non-discrimination law (“civil coexistence law”), it’s not clear to me (a little more context would help a lot). And I’m a spanish native speaker and south american.

    [In Argentina, the language for “civil unions” is precisely “convivencia civil”.]

  38. Semper Gumby says:

    Grumpy Beggar: Dolce & Gabbana made a good point.

    David Spaulding: Regarding Francis’ anti-Americanism:

    https://wdtprs.com/2020/02/why-does-francis-partner-with-jeffrey-sachs/

    “It is an honor for me to be attacked by the Americans,” the pope said.

    The pope’s words regarding Americans do not come as a great surprise to close followers of his pontificate, who are well aware of the pontiff’s general dislike of the yanquis (Yankees).

    https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/09/04/pope-francis-honor-be-attacked-americans/

    ChesterFrank: Good point, perhaps that should be “Harris-Biden.”

    Benedict Joseph: “He [Bergoglio] did not receive the requisite rebuke from his superior at that time, how can we expect him to behave correctly now?”

    Good point. A failure back then not only of leadership, but basic supervision.

  39. Semper Gumby says:

    Insightful post and comments:

    ASK FATHER: What’s up with Francis’ 2019 Christmas address to the Roman Curia?

    “The Church is two hundred years behind the times. Why is she not shaken up?”

    https://wdtprs.com/2019/12/ask-father-whats-up-with-francis-2019-christmas-address-to-the-roman-curia/

    [Thanks for reminding me of that! I went back and read it again. Pretty interesting, in retrospect.]

  40. Toan says:

    Apologies if someone has pointed this out already, but here goes…

    The full quote from the first part of Pope Francis’s interview is this: “Once I was asked a question on a flight—it made me angry afterwards, it made me angry because of how the media reported it—about the family integration of people with homosexual orientation, and I said: homosexual people have a right be a part of a family, people with homosexual orientation have a right to be in a family and the parents have the right to recognize this son as homosexual, this daughter as homosexual. Nobody should be thrown out or be miserable because of it.”

    Apparently he was talking there about throwing kids with same-sex attraction out of the house, or otherwise treating them badly. The documentary seems to take his words away from this context and use them to imply he meant them about same sex civil unions, and to imply that not permitting same-sex civil unions is equal to making people “miserable” or “throwing them out”, and respecting the “right to a family” necessarily includes civil union legislation. Of course they edited out the part soon after where he says “the right to a family” does not approve of homosexual acts.

    Pretty devious filmmaking.

    Unfortunately we don’t have the context surrounding the civil union quote. Granted, it seems clear he did support some form of civil unions in the context of Argentina while the subject of “marriage” was up for debate, so that doesn’t sound great.

    Additionally, this is an opportunity for him to clarify what he really thinks. I will not hold my breath for him to offer such clarity.

  41. WVC says:

    Geez – that trailer is the most narcissistic thing I’ve seen in a long while. It’s like a trailer for a new Marvel movie staring Papa Francesca as the hero.

    “Which is I’m ever so humble, Mr. Copperfield.”

  42. Semper Gumby says:

    Fr. Z: You’re welcome.

    “He gathered these four principles from an Argentinian caudillo named Juan Manual de Rosas (+1877) in his letter to another caudillo.”

    Francis’ desire to “shake her up” and Bergoglio’s fascination (as layman and clergyman) with the principles of a caudillo help explain why this pontificate is a problem developing into a menace.

    Despite his vaunted concern for “the poor,” Francis’ weaponized ambiguity and various assaults on the Catholic faith (e.g. Pachamama, problematic Gospel interpretations and pronouncements on the family) are destructive to stability and the virtues. The promotion of stability and the virtues aids the poor in body and soul.

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