Some good comments in these videos about the leaked report about the survey of bishops. Francis used it to go ahead and do what he wanted and imposed his whim by issuing Taurina cacata…. Traditionis custodes.
I think Robert Royal’s point about JUSTICE is important.
Pay attention to Mark and Gavin.
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Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on Wherein Fr. Z had a bad scare and thereafter Fr. Z rants.: “Thanks for the advice. My workplace has mandated training for spotting suspicious e-mails and yes, these scammers are getting more…”
on To bishops who want to ban (entirely legit) “ad orientem” worship… “Do you like apples?”: “And His Holiness is using a missal stand. Let us pray that some bishops learn by example.”
on To bishops who want to ban (entirely legit) “ad orientem” worship… “Do you like apples?”: “KW, Same story in Seattle Archdiocese. Detroit and Charlotte. ?”
on 14 or 15 July – St. Bonaventure, Doctor: “What should I do with my life?: “What a lovely description of a saint’s life! Benedict’s ability to see the good in another to me is breath…”
on Another bombshell from Diane Montagna about the extremely dodgy excuses for the cruel “Traditionis custodes”: “I suspect that the survey convinced Pope Francis that he needed to take action against the TLM precisely because so…”
on Wherein Fr. Z had a bad scare and thereafter Fr. Z rants.: “I had a very good-looking and -sounding message from PayPal today, too. Only, what they said about ‘activity on my…”
on To bishops who want to ban (entirely legit) “ad orientem” worship… “Do you like apples?”: “Those apples are sweet and nutritious.”
on To bishops who want to ban (entirely legit) “ad orientem” worship… “Do you like apples?”: “Not just “want to ban” or “trying to outlaw” — but some bishops have already done so. For instance, what…”
on Wherein Fr. Z had a bad scare and thereafter Fr. Z rants.: “KeePassXC is a great program that generates and stores random passwords *offline*, on your computer. You access it with a…”
on To bishops who want to ban (entirely legit) “ad orientem” worship… “Do you like apples?”: “We are so back.”
on 14 or 15 July – St. Bonaventure, Doctor: “What should I do with my life?: “In light of the picture included in the post, and happier days to come, did you see that today the…”
on Deinde de chirurgo et plumbario. Chirurgus habet urgentem aquae rimam ad reparandam…: “I think the trades are a wonderful career path for a young man. However, just like every young man is…”
on Deinde de chirurgo et plumbario. Chirurgus habet urgentem aquae rimam ad reparandam…: “A Protestant friend of mine got his electrician license while an undergraduate. He’s currently in a PhD program in Scripture.”
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
My first thought when I read the story was that it was a strategic leak by the Vatican that would begin to lay the groundwork for repealing or significantly rolling back TC.
I suspect I am too optimistic about why the document was leaked, but I can always hope and pray.
I think we lack the capacity to appreciate just how busy a pope (or any other head of state) is. To say that he has the time to fully study and review a worldwide survey of bishops, and then willfully mischaracterize its results, among incomprehensibly many pressing responsibilities, is absurd.
I think one can more reasonably question prudence (should something so disruptive be done without sufficient personal study?), those on whom trust was bestowed (can those with the pope’s ear be sufficiently trusted to present the truth, as opposed to manipulate facts to obtain a desired outcome?), perhaps humility (to so contradict a living predecessor without consultation) or even authoritarianism (to provide by law what you can put in a bulletin — really?).
I think it is far more difficult to conclude that the Pope was aware of the nature of the survey (assuming the recently leaked summaries are accurate) and deliberately misrepresented them. The TC language “having heard” the CDF sounds like “canonese” that require certain decisions to be made after consulting (but not necessarily obtaining the approval) of various bodies in a parish or diocese. It suggests that the CDF (former Ecclesia Dei section) disagreed with the direction. Suggests, but doesn’t actually demonstrate. (My own bishop will use the same language when his decisions align with the advise received in such consultations.)
In the end, I suspect Pope Francis’s reign will be judged by historians a tragedy. I don’t think we really understood him (so many of our own sources of church news coming from an ideological bent) and I am really sure he never understood us (what does the history of Argentinian-US relations reveal about common Argentinian opinion of this country; whom did he consult to better understand this country?). After two popes with a distinct appreciation of the United States (JP2, an ally to free Poland and the world from Communism; Benedict, who understood the strength and vitality of certain academic faculties in this country who held to a reform-in-continuity theology), Pope Francis seemingly had no use for the Catholics this country but as foil.
Perhaps it is a divine sense of re-ordering of things that we now have an American pope, after one who so didn’t get us American Catholics.
It seems to me that the Church is not taking sacred history seriously enough. How would the God of Abraham have reacted? When Abraham was told that God was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked if the Lord would destroy the good with the bad. Abraham asks the Lord whether he would destroy 50 good people with the evil ones in these cities and the Lord replies that if there are 50 good people, He will spare the cities for the sake of the 50 good.
There is also the parable of the wheat and the tares, as well as the statement by Jesus that there will be no lording over one another among the apostles.
Everyone knew that TC was unjust and had not been vetted thoroughly when it was released. There was no possible explanation other than malice, which became clear when clarifications of TC prohibited Bishops from acting in the best interest of the salvation of the the church members in their diocese. Don’t wait until the harvest to separate the wheat from the tares, don’t worry about destroying the good with the bad, just lord over Catholics who find the VO spiritually beneficial even though our Lord said there will be no lording over in His Church.
You know… maybe the important thing about the survey’s true results is that it revealed how most bishops of the Latin/Roman Rite have positive feelings about traditional Catholics, and how most traditional Catholics are working together well with their bishops.
It doesn’t surprise me one bit that the results from an honest survey, or even a survey that is written in a tilted way, were found inconvenient by certain people at the top.
And frankly, Pope Francis wasn’t the guy to read through a selection of raw results. He was not a detail guy or a guy who did his own research. So it probably wouldn’t be hard for a bureaucrat to mislead him or rile him up with a fake analysis of the survey, although what happened next might be harder to control.
Sad to say but I do not buy the theory that Francis was misled or did not know or any of that. Have we forgotten the idol worship in the Vatican? Have we forgotten all the name calling and the persecution of faithful lay and clergy? Did not anyone know his history in Argentina? A book could (and most likely will be) written about the errors and misdeeds of the last pontificate. I believe 100% that the TC was what he wanted and approved of.
Well, Leo has a chance to undo at least this attack on the part of Francis. I’m not holding my breath.
I know via medias are usually unsuccessful, but I do think “Francis was no friend of traditionalists” and “there was trickery by someone (singular or plural) behind TC” can and do coexist. What rings true to me about something like the Rorate Caeli theory is that A) it makes no sense to approve new prefaces for a rite you intend to supress within few weeks B) Francis refused to sign a further restriction presented to him later. Francis liked the dance of pushing and pulling: insult here and grant there (paradigmatic case, extending confession faculties to the FSSPX: reinforces an idea of their link to Rome, needles both traditional institutes and progressives, control remains with him). The heavy handedness of TC creates martyrs AND leaves no leverage. In that sense I do think it’s very uncharacteristic, and that makes curial shenanigans more likely, in my opinion.
The Hispanic background factor is also relevant; while of course traditional theology and practice does itch progressivism, there isn’t a traditionalist movement the way it exists in the US-UK-France. For many converging reasons that go from a much less organized laity, the proliferation of conservative NO institutes like Opus Dei and IVE, heavier clericalism, and, yes, it has to be said, an emotional attitude of fear towards the TLM (even otherwise pious and doctrinally sound bishops recoil at the idea as if one were suggesting bringing back animal sacrifices. Cfr. –because it’s been public and notorious– bishop Munilla in Spain). In that particular sense, the TLM is not a threat and rather a matter of indifference (as the questionnaire responses show), if we are thinking of Francis as a Hispanic bishop becoming pope. The main concerns are sociopolitical, then theological, and liturgy is an afterthought.
I notice a Vatican spokesman at a recent press conference (about another liturgical topic) said that this leaked document was “presumably” one of several, possibly “reserved” reports that contributed to the TC decision. In other words, he doesn’t really know, but was giving an instinctively defensive PR response. He’s probably right that greater weight was given to off-the-record interventions by certain individuals, but at the very least, the public spin that the bishops of the world were solidly behind such a move has been clearly debunked. Pope Leo could legitimately say that the ‘synodal process’ was sadly flawed on this and choose to listen again.
P.S. He could also reaffirm the demand made in TC that liturgical abuses and deviations in the celebration of the NO should be curtailed. That may have been intended as a sop to some perception of balance, but it is in the document, so he doesn’t need to abrogate it altogether :-).
I agree with @Ave Maria- Francis was not the type to be misled when he wanted something. The whole tenure of his papacy was painful for the Church, especially those that Francis did not like. And watching numerous bishops carry out the suppression of the VO, not to mention the silence of other bishops on the matter, was a real lesson in how “clericalism” worked under Francis. There was a pattern, a tone, to the Bergoglio papacy and it was not good-
Bugnini may have been able to hoodwink Paul VI, but I don’t think anyone around Francis was able to lead him by the nose (mediocrity increasingly became the norm). You can say a lot of things about him, but I don’t think he was anyone’s fool.
I don’t think Leo is much different than Francis. He has the laminate of tradition. To me, it’s a more cunning way of doing things than Francis. Considering Leo’s track record, I wouldn’t be surprised if he crushed the TLM just the same…