Letter #23, 2019: The Pope We Have

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Letter #23, 2019: The Pope We Have

[2019-05-02]

[Engleză]

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

“We therefore request that your Lordships urgently address the situation of Pope Francis’s public adherence to heresy... We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.” —A group of 19 Catholic priests and academics in a 20-page open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church, asking the bishops to denounce Pope Francis publicly as a heretic

“There is overwhelming support for Francis in the global Church on one side, and a tiny fringe of extremists trying to paint Francis as a Pope who is heretic. The problem is that there is very little legitimate, constructive critique of Francis’ pontificate and his theology.” —Professor Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, in an email to Reuters commenting on the open letter of the 19 priests and academics

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” â€•Blaise Pascal, Pensées

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Accusations of heresy and the Pope we have

The Catholic Church today has a very particular Pope in Jorge Bergoglio, 82, who took the name "Francis" upon his election to the papacy on March 13, 2013, more than six years ago now.

And now a number (for the moment, just a small number) of thoughtful Catholics are publicly accusing this very particular Pope of... being a heretic, that is, of teaching, not the orthodox doctrine of the Church, but false doctrine.

A dramatic charge, indeed!

Even more dramatically, these Catholics are addressing the Church's bishops, appealing to them to recognize the "errors" of Francis, and then to seek his removal for this reason from the office of Pope.

Why is this happening, and how important is it?

Good questions! I must confess, I do not (of course) have any complete answers... which would require a type of omniscience available only to God. (Only God could know all of the motives and reasonings of Pope Francis, of his inner circle, of his critics, and of others, more or less in the shadows, who may for various reasons be supporting or instigating divisions between the Pope and his vast flock.)

It does seem clear is that there has been certain breakdown in communication.

Serious, well-meaning Catholics — including cardinals — have expressed perplexity about some of Francis's words and actions, yet Francis has not sought to address these "perplexities" in a wide-ranging, serious, effective way.

Consequently, "perplexities" which might have been dispelled have instead festered.

And now a certain spiritual disease has not only incubated, but has begun to metastasize.

That is worrisome.

The spiritual disease is characterized by distrust: the Pope distrusts (it seems clear) the motives and good will of his critics; and the Pope's critics (clearly), though still relatively few, distrust the motives and good will of the Pope, and of his inner circle.

We now face a situation which could grow more polarized. This could at some point threaten the unity of the Church.

But the great challenges of our time require a united Church — "one" as the Creed puts it — just as they also require a Church that is "holy, apostolic, and catholic."

In such a situation, it seems needful to do what is possible in hopes of avoiding a further polarization.

This might include making an appeal to Pope Francis and his inner circle to explain (teach) more clearly, but also to make an appeal to his critics to discern still more profoundly their understanding of Francis, and of his mind and teaching, and of the needs of the Church at the present moment.

Below I attempt to set this situation in a certain context (inevitably incomplete), and to provide several texts in an effort to shed some light on a situation which seems to be spinning toward a tragic outcome.

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Francis the Mystic

Pope Francis, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, a product of Jesuit training, is someone whose spirituality is rooted, in a profound way, in a specific mystical experience he had on September 21, 1953.

That experience was the catalyst for his priestly vocation.

Recalling that he had this mystical experience, we can understand that he he places "encounter," the direct contact of the soul with God, ahead of rational argument — as important as rational argument may be.

Francis has said that, like St. Augustine, he believes human beings are "made for God."

“From the depths of my being, something attracts me toward Someone who looked for me first, is waiting for me first, is the ‘almond flower’ of the prophets, the first to bloom in spring,” Francis once said. “It is the quality which God possesses and which I take the liberty of defining by using a Buenos Aires word: God, in this case Jesus Christ, always primerea, goes ahead of us. When we arrive, He is already there waiting.”

The deep point here is that the Christian faith, in its essence, is not about finger-pointing, which can make people turn away.

It is rather about looking upon people with the love of Christ, the same love with which He looked upon us, when we were far from Him.

This is why, as we observe his papacy, it may be important to keep in mind what Pope Francis says he experienced mystically on September 21, 1953, when he was 16, and felt "the mercy of God" descend upon him in an almost physical way after he went to confession.

Here is a piece from Zenit, September 21, 1917, by French journalist Anita Bourdin, which describes this mysterious experience. (link)

Pope Francis’ Vocation at 16 on September 21, 1953

“I Don’t Know What Happened”

Zenit, September 21, 2017

By Anita Bourdin

Young Jorge Mario Bergoglio was 16 on St. Matthew’s feast in 1953, when he had a decisive experience that changed the course of his life. Today Pope Francis transmits to young people the experience of his youth with discretion and modesty.

On the eve of the feast of the Apostle and Evangelist St. Matthew, the Holy Father greeted young people as usual at the end of the General Audience of September 20, 2017.

“May his conversion be an example, dear young people, to live your life with the criteria of the faith,” he exhorted.

The pontiff has never forgotten that Confession that changed his life, on the feast of St. Matthew in 1953, in Buenos Aires. Born in 1936, he would be 17 the following December 17. Father Carlos B. Duarte Ibarra was there, at Flores. “I had no doubts that I should be a priest,” Pope Francis said.

Austen Ivereigh recounts it in his biography of Pope Francis (Francis the Great Reformer): “'God passed before him' on September 21, 1953. Walking down Rivadavia Avenue, he passed in front of St. Joseph’s Basilica, which he knew well. He then felt a strange need to enter it. 'I went in, I felt it was necessary that I enter — those things you feel in you without knowing what it is,' he explained to Father Juan Isasmendi at the parish. He continued: 'I looked, it was dark, it was a morning in September, perhaps 9 o’clock, and I saw a priest walking, I didn’t know him, he was not part of the priests of the parish. And he sat down in one of the Confessionals, the last one on the left when one looks at the altar. I don’t know at all what happened next. I had the impression that someone pushed me to enter the Confessional. Of course I told him certain things, I went to Confession — but I don’t know what happened. When I finished my Confession, I asked the priest where he was from, because I didn’t know him, and he said: "I come from Corrientes and I live very close to here, at home. I come to celebrate Mass here every now and then." He had cancer – leukemia – and died the following year.

"I knew there that I would become a priest. I was sure and certain of it.

"Instead of going out with the others, I returned to the house because I was submerged.

"Afterwards, I pursued my studies and all the rest, but I now knew where I was going.”

“In a letter of 1990, to describe this experience, he explains that it was as if he had been thrown from his horse,” continues Ivereigh...

However, for more than a year Jorge Bergoglio said nothing at home. His ideas were clear. He confided to Oscar Crespo, of the chemistry laboratory where he worked: “I’m going to finish the Technical College with you, the lads. However, I won’t be a chemist. I’ll be a priest, but not a priest in a Basilica. I will be a Jesuit because I want to go out to the districts, to the villas, to be with the people.”

The fundamental words of Bergoglio’s mission were already there: “go out” to be “with the people.”

He recounted how he had an “experience of divine mercy,” and that he felt “called,” at the urging of St. Matthew and St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The Gospel of the feast of St. Matthew recalls Jesus’ call in his regard: “Jesus left Capernaum and saw, in passing, a man named Matthew sitting at his desk of tax collector. He said to him: 'Follow me.' The man got up and followed him.”

The Pope is fascinated by Christ’s gaze that settles on Levi, on himself, on each one. He often invites to let oneself be looked at by Christ, to act under Christ’s gaze...

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Francis the Mourner

Francis on numerous occasions has spoken about the brokenness of human lives.

He has become famous for his teaching that serious sins, serious breaches of the moral law, may be forgiven.

Of course, this is Christ's teaching, and it is the teaching of the Church.

But what Francis brings to situations of brokenness and woundedness (sinfulness) is a personal passion that distinguishes him.

I sense that one reason for this is the fact that a woman Francis worked with, became friends with, and cared deeply about, was arrested and killed by the Argentine military government in 1977, when Francis was 41.

I suspect that the bitter sorrow Francis experienced when he learned of the death of this woman — who was a committed Communist — influenced his spirituality deeply.

He reacted to her death by intensifying his desire, I believe, to reach out to "lost sheep" who had strayed from the traditional path of the Christian faith. (The story of their relationship is below.)

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Five texts

Here follow five texts on this controversial open letter accusing Francis of heresy, the last one of them the complete text of the letter itself:

(1) A Reuters report by Phil Pullella (overview from the perspective of a major secular news agency)

2) A LifeSiteNews report by Maike Hickson (also an overview, but from the perspective of a writer favorable to the initiative of the open letter)

(3) A piece posted on Rorate Caeli written by Italian Professor Roberto de Mattei which sharply critiques the decision of Pope Francis to sign a document along with a leading Muslim theologian

(4) An article from The Guardian newspaper from December 11, 2013, which describes the deep friendship between the young Jorge Bergoglio and Esther Careaga. The article details how Careaga came from her native Paraguay to Argentina in the late 1950s as a political exile because of her socialist activism in her home country. In Argentina, she worked alongside a young Bergoglio in a chemistry laboratory in the mid-1950s, when Bergoglio was in his late teens and had not yet entered seminary to study for the priesthood. Twenty years later, Careaga was one of thousands of people who "disappeared" between 1976 and 1983. She, along with two other mothers and two French nuns, was abducted on December 8, 1977. Then, after days of torture, she was evidently executed by being thrown out of an airplane into the ocean from thousands of feet above the harbor of Buenos Aires. In 2005, forensic anthropologists dug up her body from an unmarked grave that contained the remains of victims who had washed up on shore in late December 1977 near the beach resort of Santa Teresita, south of Buenos Aires. DNA testing is said to have confirmed that the bodies were those of Careaga and the other four women arrested with her.

(5) A link to the complete text of the "open letter" of the 19 Catholic priests and academics (link)

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(1) The Reuters overview report (il=0" target="_blank" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 18px;">link)

Here is an overview report on the open letter by Phil Pullella of Reuters.

WORLD NEWS

MAY 1, 2019

Conservatives want Catholic bishops to denounce pope as heretic

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A group of 19 Catholic priests and academics have urged bishops to denounce Pope Francis as a heretic, in the latest ultra-conservative broadside against the pontiff over a range of topics from communion for the divorced to religious diversity.

The most prominent of the group is Father Aidan Nichols, a 70-year-old British priest of the Dominican order who has written many books and is one of most recognized theologians in the English-speaking world. The others are less well known.

“We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church,” they said in a 20-page open letter.

The letter attacks Francis for allegedly softening the Church’s stance on a range of subjects. They say he has not been outspoken enough against abortion and has been too welcoming to homosexuals and too accommodating to Protestants and Muslims.

It was published on Tuesday by LifeSiteNews, a conservative Catholic website that often is a platform for attacks on the pope. Last year, it ran a document by the Vatican’s former ambassador to Washington, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, calling on the pope to resign.

A Vatican spokesman had no comment on the letter, which includes dozens of footnotes, Bible verses, pronouncements by previous popes, and a separate bibliography. The letter invites people to join an on-line signature drive.

Addressing the bishops, the letter says “We therefore request that your Lordships urgently address the situation of Pope Francis’s public adherence to heresy.”

It asks them to “publicly to admonish Pope Francis to abjure the heresies that he has professed.”

Deciding whether a Church member is a heretic is the job of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog department.

Massimo Faggioli, a well-known professor of historical theology at Villanova University in the United States, said the letter was an example of the extreme polarisation in the Church.

“There is overwhelming support for Francis in the global Church on one side, and a tiny fringe of extremists trying to paint Francis as a pope who is heretic. The problem is that there is very little legitimate, constructive critique of Francis’ pontificate and his theology,” he said in an email.

A significant part of the letter concentrates on “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love), a 2016 papal document that is a cornerstone of Francis’ attempt to make the 1.3 billion-member Church more inclusive and less condemning.

ULTRA CONSERVATIVES TAKE AIM

In it, Francis called for a Church that is less strict and more compassionate towards any “imperfect” members, such as those who divorced and later remarry in civil ceremonies.

Under Church law they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is still valid in the eyes of the Church, unless they have received an annulment. The Church does not allow divorce.

Francis has opened the door to some exceptions, allowing the decision whether the person can be fully re-integrated and receive communion to be made by a priest or bishop jointly with the individual on a case-by-case basis.

After Amoris Laetitia was published, four conservative publicly challenged the pope, accusing him of sowing confusion on important moral issues. He has thus far not responded to their demands that he clear up their doubts.

The new letter lists pages of what it calls “Evidence for Pope Francis being guilty of the delict (crime) of heresy.”

It attacks him for having once said that the intentions of Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, “were not mistaken”. It says he has not condemned abortion strongly enough and is too lenient with homosexual Catholics.

The letter criticized Francis for signing a joint statement with Lutherans in 2016 in which the pope said Catholics were grateful for the “theological gifts” of the Reformation.

It attacked the pope for a common statement with a prominent Muslim leader in Abu Dhabi in February which said the pluralism and diversity of religions was “willed by God.” Conservatives say the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one and that members are called to convert others to it.

Reporting by Philip Pullella, Editing by William Maclean

Sursa: www.InSideTheVatican.com

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