Accuser of The Brethren

I have done several posts about Michael Voris and how I feel he has crossed the line. I find him to be more and more dangerous to the Catholic faithful. I know that is a very heavy accusation, but I feel it needs to be said. And Christine, please don't bother posting any comments because I won't publish them. You would defend Michael Voris no matter what, and you shed absolutely no light on anything.

Michael Voris recently did a Vortex episode entitled, "Pendulum Swinging Back."  You can watch the entire episode here.  Voris quoted from a Washington Post article which cites Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida.  The quote from Bishop Lynch used in the Post article and cited by Voris is:  “The pendulum has begun to shift back and how long it will continue to do so, well that is up to the Holy Spirit. For the moment, I find all this absolutely amazing..”

Voris mentions that Bishop Lynch wrote this comment on his blog.  However, Voris does not provide a link to the blog so that we can read the quote in context.  Unlike Voris, I will give you the link to the blog post, which is here.  The only links given by Voris are two very biased blog posts which denounce the Bishop.

Even though Bishop Lynch's blog post gives the full explanation of this quote, Voris still asks:

What an odd thing for His Excellency to say. Shift back to WHERE, exactly? Shift back FROM where, exactly? And whatever accounts for the “shifting”, can we really attribute it to the Holy Spirit as Bishop Lynch seems so enthused to do? 

I can only assume Voris does not give the link to Bishop Lynch's blog because if anyone actually read the words of His Excellency, he or she would know how underhanded Voris is in his treatment of the Bishop. Voris defends excoriating the Bishop with these words: "When a bishop talks like that, it’s fair game to try and understand exactly what he means. After all, in this age of murky comments and massive lack of clarity, it seems only fair the faithful should understand what is trying to be conveyed." In other words, let's not hear what the Bishop has to say. Let's just put words in his mouth.

Bishop Lynch wrote his blog post in response to the two interviews given by Pope Francis which caused a tremendous amount of controversy. Bishop Lynch made a statement that is directly in line with the statements of Pope Francis: "Quite frankly we are losing membership not because of the presence of the truth but because of the absence of mercy." He then quotes Pope Francis' statement describing the Church as a field hospital after battle.

Bishop Lynch laments in his post that the Church has largely abandoned the vision set forth in the documents from Vatican II, specifically “Lumen Gentium” and “Gaudium et Spes”.  His Excellency feels that we have only paid lip service to these documents.  Bishop Lynch summarizes this sentiment by saying that we now have "a Church that seems to have lost the notion that Jesus spent more of his time with sinners, the poor, blind, and the lame and with outcasts than with those who might have had the influence to help him spread his message the most."

Bishop Lynch goes on to use a phrase that has become a hot button for Traditionalists: "seamless garment." Many traditionalists react violently when they hear these words, which originated with the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a frequent target of traditionalists, because they interpret the term "seamless garment" to mean that the Church places no more importance on such issues as abortion than on poverty. My argument is that one often leads to the other and, therefore, they are both of great importance. But that is for another time.

From Bishop Lynch:

I served a church when its episcopal leadership were pastors, before their ordination as bishops and after as well. They envisioned the Church as sharing common ground with many others, advocating a seamless garment in promoting the life issues, ardent advocates for social justice for all people, prophets for peace, worshipping in our common language and with a greater simplicity and passionate but not strident. Somewhere along the line, we lost this vision. Now, in this amazing interview, Pope Francis is once again raising the specter of hope that what has begun fifty years ago this month will continue over time. The pendulum has begun to shift back and how long it will continue to do so, well that is up to the Holy Spirit. For the moment, I find all this absolutely amazing. 

Bishop Lynch is telling us he feels the Church has lost the vision of Vatican II, going far astray from what was proposed at the Council, but he now feels that Pope Francis has given us a "specter of hope" that the true meaning and intention of Vatican II can be regained by the Church.  And that is what he finds "absolutely amazing."

This most likely will not satisfy many traditionalists because they for the most part reject Vatican II. However, Cardinal Kurt Koch wrote an interesting essay in which he talked about those who view Vatican II as a "hermeneutic of rupture."  From catholicculture.org:

In an essay published in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity wrote that “two extreme tendencies” – the progressive and the traditionalist – see the Second Vatican Council as a rupture rather than as “part of the living tradition” of the Church.

Far left liberals feel the Catholic Church was essentially a sham before Vatican II, that it was a time when the Church hierarchy oppressed the laity, especially women who were basically just a step above slaves. Extreme right traditionalists feel that the Church has more or less ceased to exist after Vatican II, and that the Church is now run by a sham hierarchy that wants to blend in with all other world religions by throwing away everything that is authentically Catholic. (Michael Voris and this Vortex episode are prime examples of this.) Both views are just two sides of the same coin, and as Cardinal Koch wrote, these are extremist views which must be rejected because, as His Eminence explained, they see Vatican II "as a rupture rather than as part of the living tradition of the Church." Below is a Google translation of the essay by Cardinal Koch, which can be found here:

It is therefore no coincidence that these two extreme tendencies, already on a linguistic level, agree on making a distinction between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church, as if the Church was no longer the same before and after the council. The difference between the two trends is that while the progressive emphatically supports a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture, the traditionalist favors hermeneutic of simple, ahistorical continuity, but in reference to the Second Vatican Council, is revealed also a hermeneutic of rupture. From both perspectives, the Vatican is no longer considered as part of the living tradition of the Church, existed until then, but as its end.

Therefore, according to Cardinal Koch, Pope Francis and the Magesterium of the Church, if you see Vatican II as a rupture, you are rejecting the Church because, as Cardinal Koch explains, it is "part of the living tradition of the Church."

Back to Voris, who now begins a litany of accusations against Bishop Robert Lynch.  In what I feel is a truly despicable act, Voris spends the entire Vortex episode airing what he considers to be the dirty laundry of Bishop Lynch, all unproven, unverified and false, as I will show.

The first accusation against the Bishop:

Bishop Lynch is the same bishop who the pro-life movement accused of abandoning Terri Schiavo during the long drawn out court battle back in 2005 as her husband denied her family’s wishes and was eventually able to have her legally starved to death. This after the husband, Michael, was already living with another woman with whom he had two children.

Voris couches his words by saying "the pro life movement accused" Bishop Lynch.  Voris knows better than to make a direct accusation because he knows it isn't true.  From an August 24, 2003 article (almost 2 years before Terri Schiavo was killed) in the National Catholic Register entitled, "Terri Schiavo’s Bishop Warns Against Removing Feeding Tube":

A day after the bishop of St. Petersburg, stated that removal of a feeding tube from a 39-year-old Florida woman who suffered severe brain damage in 1990 cannot be justified at this time by Church teaching, the woman, Terri Schiavo, was moved from a nursing home to a hospital under emergency medical circumstances.

To be fair, the article goes on to state:

Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, the diocese in which Terri Schiavo has been residing, in a long-awaited statement Aug. 12 called the situation “tragic,” noting that medical experts disagree about Schiavo's condition and chance of improvement.

Stating that Catholic teaching advises “presumption in favor of providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration to all patients as long as it is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the burden involved to the patient,” the bishop “strongly recommend[ed]” that both Schiavo's husband and her parents seek “a clearer understanding of her actual physical condition.”

Her parents should be allowed to pursue medical therapy that may improve her condition, he said. The statement leaves open the possibility of licitly removing the tube after further study.

Bishop Lynch added that it is “a much harder case” than many imagine and warned against “excessive rhetoric” such as using the word “murder” or calling the trial judges “murderers.”

Although Bishop Lynch did not come out as strongly against the forced removal of Terry Schiavo's feeding tube as many of us would have liked, this is hardly equal to "abandoning" Terri Schiavo.  As the article goes on to further state:

In his statement Bishop Lynch said Catholic teaching does allow a feeding tube to be “withheld or withdrawn where that treatment itself is causing harm to the patient or is useless because the patient's death is imminent, as long as the patient is made comfortable.”

In Schiavo's case, he said, “it is not clear whether [the feeding tube] is delaying her dying process to no avail, is unreasonably burdensome for her and contrary to what she would wish if she could tell us.” If the feeding is not helping her “or it is unreasonably burdensome for her and her family or her caregivers,” it “could be seen as permissible” to remove the tube, he wrote.

Yet, he added, if the tube is removed “simply because she is not dying quickly enough and some believe she would be better off because of her low quality of life, this would be wrong.”

I personally think Bishop Lynch should have come out much stronger in his statement that it is wrong to withdraw food and water from anyone, as Pope John Paul II did in 2005 shortly before he died. But Michael Voris is going beyond the pale when he makes this statement:

That Bishop Lynch, in whose diocese the drama played out, would have so clearly sided with the husband was beyond shocking to not just pro-lifers in general, but also to Terri’s parents and brother Bobby Schindler as well.

In my opinion, Terri Schiavo was murdered by the state. It was unconscionable that her feeding tube was removed and that she was slowly starved to death. Although it could be argued that Bishop Lynch was trying to play the impartial middle ground, he most definitely did not "clearly side with the husband" as Voris states.

Voris then accuses the bishop of the following:

Following the starvation death of Terri and supporting it [a totally false and slanderous statement on the part of Voris], Bishop Lynch then sanctioned the marriage of Michael Schiavo and his former concubine.

This statement makes it seem that Bishop Lynch was right there cheering on Michael Schiavo, both in the killing of Terri Schiavo and in Michael Schiavo's marriage after the death of his wife. Michael Schiavo had every right to marry after the death of Terry Schiavo. It could most definitely be morally argued that he caused the death of his wife, but Michael Schiavo went through the courts and did everything legally. The entire situation makes my skin crawl, but since Terri Schiavo had died, Michael Schiavo was free to remarry and provide a home for his two children. There was nothing the bishop could do to stop Michael Schiavo from marrying.

The next accusation from Voris:

But even prior to this infamous set of circumstances, Bishop Lynch was making a name for himself among faithful and concerned Catholics in his local diocese. He issued a declaration against perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in his parishes, allowing only worship of the Eucharist reserved in tabernacles [another untrue statement].

For parishes that wish to inaugurate adoration of the Blessed Sacrament the Bishop said they should quote - “reflect on… their commitment of time and money to social services.” Among reflections he offered to the faithful - they should ask, “Does the eucharistic bread look like bread?”

This is way off the charts.  You can read the Bishop's entire document on this subject here.  Review of the bishops's document shows just how false Voris's statements are.

Bishop Lynch, contrary to the innuendo expressed by Voris, explains that prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is very important:

Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament has long been encouraged by the Church. The Church teaches that prayer is essential for Christian spirituality and calls us to set aside time for private prayer. Therefore, the Church asserts that prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament is a privileged time, a time when we speak to and respond to the prompting of the eucharistic Lord in our hearts. Just as our Lord needed time to be alone in prayer, so too, do we. Pope Paul VI emphasized this by saying, “visiting the eucharistic Lord is a proof of gratitude, a pledge of love, a service of adoration owed to the Lord present there” (Mysterium Fidei, no. 66). 

Bishop Lynch explains what Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is:

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, in contrast to adoration, refers to the public display of the Blessed Sacrament in either a monstrance or a ciborium. It is part of a liturgical rite, therefore, the directives for exposition are explicit and outlined in Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (HCWEOM, nos. 82-100), in liturgical directives, and in instructions from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The clear intention of these documents is that exposition has a beginning and an end. By its very nature, it is not perpetual. According to HCWEOM, no.95, exposition should involve music, reading(s) from sacred Scripture, preaching, intercessory prayer, time for private prayer/adoration, and conclude with a special blessing of the faithful.

The Bishop goes on to explain that there can be annual solemn exposition which can last for for an extended period (one or more days), or there can be brief periods of exposition, contrary to Voris's accusation that the Bishop did not allow this:

The Church gives allowance for briefer periods of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, perhaps monthly or weekly for a fixed period of time. Because the Eucharist is being exposed in a monstrance or ciborium, it is a ritual of the Church and the directives of HCWEOM (nos. 93-100) and the liturgical norms established by the Church are to be strictly followed.

Bishop's Lynch concern was about perpetual adoration, which can only be done under special circumstances, and he felt that these circumstances did not exist in his diocese. I have personally experienced this in that there have been more times than I can count when I have gone into an adoration chapel or a church where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, and no one else is there. It is wrong to expose the Blessed Sacrament and then just walk away without regard to proper reverence. Bishop Lynch rightfully did not want this happening in his diocese.

The issue of “perpetual” exposition (i.e., 365 days, 24 hours a day) of the Eucharist is being advocated by some within the Church. Because perpetual exposition is a devotional practice of a religious community or a pious association that observes this according to their constitution, it should normally take place in a chapel of that religious community or association (Congregation for Divine Worship, July 1995). Neither of these exist in the Diocese of St. Petersburg. The general understanding of the Church is that this type of exposition is not to be the normal and continuous pattern in the parish. Parishes seeking dispensation from this rule must petition the Bishop and show good reason for its need. They also will need to show that they have attended to the primary form of Eucharistic activity—Sunday Eucharist.

Following is the full quote from Bishop Lynch from which Voris masterfully extracted a few comments, making it seem that Bishop Lynch was more concerned about money and the physical appearance of the Eucharist than adoration.  Bishop Lynch's real concern is that the faithful are reverent and respectful in the celebration of Mass and also in their stewardship as Christians towards the community:

Although exposition of the Blessed Sacrament may help foster devotion to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, a parish’s first priority is well-planned and well-celebrated Masses. Parishes seeking to inaugurate or restore eucharistic devotions should reflect on their practices during the communion rite and their commitment of time and money (stewardship) to social services. Are they as respectful and reverent toward Christ’s presence in the gathered Body, the Church, as they are to the presence of Christ in the Sacrament? Is the fuller expression of the Eucharist under the forms of bread and wine being offered to the faithful at all Masses? Does the eucharistic bread look like bread? Does the parish carefully prepare enough communion for the gathered assembly instead of routinely going to the tabernacle? Does the eucharistic procession take its own time or is the focus to try to get through the communion rite as efficiently and expediently as possible? Do the eucharistic ministers reflect the parish, i.e., inclusive of age, ethnicity, and gender? Have the eucharistic ministers been properly trained and is their formation ongoing? Is the Eucharist being brought to members of the parish who cannot gather on Sunday because of sickness or advanced age? When these issues have been addressed, then the deeper understanding of communion that Christ intended in the Eucharist will be achieved.

It should be noted that there is exposition and adoration throughout the diocese of St. Petersburg.  One glowing example of this is at St. Mark the Evangelist Church in Tampa: Monday - Thursday: 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM (except for Holidays); Friday: 9:00 AM -5:00 PM (1st Fridays of the month).  You can go to their website here where they ask people to sign up for a time slot.  This is only one of many churches in the diocese that has exposition.  Michael Voris is clearly being disingenuous in his accusation.

But Voris is not done:

But he also had to fend off accusations and pay off a former diocesan employee, a man noted by the local press for his “muscular frame” when the man came forward and accused bishop lynch of sexually harassing him by making him stay in the same hotel rooms when they were traveling and at one point grabbing his inner thigh on a car ride. Bishop Lynch, in eventually paying off William Urbanski $100,000, said it was all a misunderstanding .. that they had been friends for a while and nothing was meant by it.

Voris tells us nothing of the circumstances and who William Urbanski is.  You can go here to an article by the St. Petersburg Times which gives background information on this terrible accusation.  According to the article, when people who knew Urbanski heard about his allegations against the bishop, it was nothing new to them:

Urbanski, who had spoken so fondly of his job as top spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, was on TV accusing his former boss and close friend, Bishop Robert N. Lynch, of sexual harassment.

Among Urbanski's friends and coworkers, the unfolding drama had a ring of familiarity. There he was again, embroiled in the sort of controversies that had muddled his life before: an on-the-job harassment issue; an unhappy departure that involved a financial settlement; issues of machismo and virility.

The article goes on to explain that Urbanski, who came from a wealthy, influential family, had threatened a previous employer, the Tampa Coliseum, with lawsuits and allegations when his job was on the line:

By 1992, funds were tight at Tampa Coliseum. Executives made it known they would have to cut a few positions. When Urbanski asked [Marc] Ganis [Urbanski's boss] if his job was secure, Ganis gave him no guarantee.

Shortly afterward, Ganis said, Urbanski came to his office with a demand for money. As Ganis remembers it, Urbanski told him he had learned that executives had spent the down payments people had paid for arena seats. Ganis acknowledges spending some of the money, but only on appropriate expenses.

According to Ganis, Urbanski threatened to take his influential father to the Tampa Sports Authority and urge them to "kill the deal" unless Ganis agreed to pay him six months' severance, about $10,000. In an interview in the Tampa Tribune, Urbanski flatly denied this.

Ganis had no intention of paying Urbanski the "blood money," he said, and considered reporting Urbanski to the state attorney for extortion. But Ganis said he dropped the idea after another partner in the project spoke with Urbanski's father.

Urbanski then got married and began his own company. According to the article:

Urbanski let his partners know he came from money. He would drop names of people he knew and spoke of dining at the yacht club. "He used to mention the bishop all the time," Rita Von Pusch said.

He pouted when he didn't get his way, she said. "He's a spoiled little rich kid."

Urbanski's partners eventually bailed out of the company and lost about $80,000.

The article states that Urbanski went on to become spokesman for the Diocese of St. Petersburg:

When Urbanski became spokesman for the Diocese of St. Petersburg 4-1/2 years ago, it was the best job he had ever had. He earned $60,000 a year. The job was a highly visible one that included speaking on the bishop's behalf, traveling with him, creating a new format for the diocesan radio station, Spirit FM, and supervising two other employees.

He beat out Mary Jo Murphy for the position, a woman 20 years his senior who had worked in the diocese's communications department since 1990.

Murphy said she quickly got over the disappointment of not getting the job, but her relationship with Urbanski was tense for a year or so for other reasons.

Urbanski, she said, often told sexually explicit jokes to her.

"I'm just not used to that," said Murphy, 62. "I'm a lady, and I'm not used to it."

Murphy perused the diocese's harassment policy and found that sexual jokes apply. She confronted Urbanski, echoing the words of the Apostle Paul, who cautioned Christians to keep their minds on things holy.

"Go to the Bible and see what Paul says about things you should think on," Murphy told him.

Urbanski told her he was sorry. The jokes stopped, and their relationship improved. From then on, "he was pleasant enough to work with," she said. "He always let me do what I needed to do."

The article describes the allegations of William Urbanski against Bishop Lynch and the fact that the Diocese paid $100,000 to Urbanski in settlement without going to court.

From a March 23, 2002 article by the St. Petersburg Times reporting on a press conference with Bishop Lynch:

Lynch appeared at a news conference Friday to calmly deny that he had ever made improper advances toward former diocesan spokesman Bill Urbanski. Lynch and his lawyer also insisted that the payment to Urbanski represented severance as Urbanski left his job -- not a settlement or admission of the harassment claims.

Seated at a small table in the diocese's Pastoral Center, Lynch read from a prepared statement in a strong, clear voice.

"I have always denied the substance of the harassment allegation and I continue to do so this afternoon, strenuously," Lynch told a room filled with cameras, 18 priests and reporters.

The denial was followed by an outpouring of support from priests, from throughout the five-county diocese, who insist they could not envision the 60-year-old Lynch making improper advances. It comes as the Catholic Church nationally is swept by scandals involving priests molesting young men and boys.

Lynch's accuser, the 42-year-old Urbanski, was a friend and colleague until he complained about the bishop's conduct last August. It was the first time, Lynch said, that Urbanski had mentioned feeling uncomfortable in his presence.

Diocesan attorney Joe DiVito convened a panel to investigate the claims, and he and the other members interviewed Urbanski and witnesses, whose names Urbanski provided, between August and November.

DiVito said they also notified Archbishop John Favalora of Miami, who oversees the St. Petersburg diocese, home to 371,714 practicing Catholics in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.

"We spoke with all of those individuals (named by Urbanski), none of whom substantiated the allegations," DiVito said. "We concluded . . . that there was nothing to substantiate those allegations. We spoke with his attorney and attempted to restructure his position so that he would not be reporting directly under Bishop Lynch. He refused that restructuring and said that he would be leaving. We then entered into a negotiation for a severance with his attorney."

Urbanski, who agreed not to sue Lynch or the diocese as a condition of accepting the money, said Friday that he stands by his complaint and his belief that Lynch harassed him.

I work in law offices and know that companies will often pay out settlements for what they call "nuisance" cases because it is easier and less expensive than trying it through the courts. This is obviously what happened in the case with Bishop Lynch. Urbanski had a history of trying to extort money from employers. He had a history of inappropriate conduct.  If he had been truly wronged, would he really have accepted this money with the condition to not sue the Diocese?  But Michael Voris doesn't tell us any of this. He just throws out the allegations with no background whatsoever, putting the bishop in the worst possible light, and a false light at that.

But Voris is still not done:

Which if it [the Urbanski incident] was a singular type incident .. would be one thing. But in the midst of all this, other news came out that another very handsome muscular man was also a close associate of the bishop – traveling with him to such places as Key West and San Francisco. This man, David Herman, was the recipient of close to 30-million dollars in construction projects awarded specifically by the diocese and the bishop especially without any other bids being sought.

Voris is making a vicious accusation with no real basis in anything.  Neither David Herman nor anyone else have ever intimated that there is or was an inappropriate relationship between them.  This is truly libelous, in my opinion, for Voris to make such statements with no proof whatsoever.

So what is Voris's point in making these terrible unfounded and false accusations against Bishop Lynch:

So when we look at all these in total, the banning of perpetual exposition in parishes, the near omni-presence of handsome muscular men (each were tri-athletes) with whom he traveled frequently, the Terri Schiavo debacle, the blessing of the marriage of Terri’s husband and a spate of comments and blog postings about the need for social justice and so forth – a buzz word for many modernist activities in the Church .. now we can step back and ask the question – What does Bishop Lynch mean when he says he sees the pendulum swinging back. Back to what? These – what the media terms – bimbo eruptions – and the Terri Schiavo case all happened back in the late 90s and early 2000’s – before Pope Benedict was elected.

Is this the era to which Bishop Lynch sees the pendulum swinging back, God forbid?

If Michael Voris were ever to bring a case like this to court, it would be immediately thrown out as circumstantial and a frivolous prosecution with no basis for an action. So why does Voris engage in this kind of slander against the ones anointed to guide and protect the people of God? At the beginning of this post, I made a very harsh statement that Michael Voris is dangerous to the Catholic faithful. Programs like this Vortex episode, which seems to have no other point than to destroy a Catholic bishop, are a prime example of just how dangerous Michael Voris truly is and why he is shunned by many in the Catholic establishment.

Take a look at this very moving video made on the Eucharist made in 2009, and then tell me that Bishop Lynch deserves the disrespectful and deceitful treatment he received from Michael Voris.

Vatican II: A Message for Our Time

I have been going through an identity crisis of sorts as a Catholic the last few months. I have no problems with Catholicism. My identity crisis involves what "camp" I belong in, which in and of itself is a problem because there shouldn't be separate "camps" in the Church. Unfortunately, "should be" and "is" are often not the same thing.

Since coming back into the Church over 7 years ago, I have identified strongly with "Traditionalists", i.e., those who love the Traditional Latin Mass and basically reject Vatican II, or at the very least the "Spirit of Vatican II", seeing the Council as the root of all the modern woes in the Church. When I started this blog just about 2 years ago, I was firmly in the "Traditionalist" camp. However, in writing the blog, I started carefully reading and analyzing Pope Benedict XVI's Wednesday audiences and other writings and sermons. Although Traditionalists loved Pope Benedict XVI for giving us Summorum Pontificum, he was still somewhat suspect because of his "Vatican II leanings." All of my Traditionalist heroes said this, so I assumed it was true and never questioned it.

However, when I started reading Benedict without anyone filtering his words, I was blown away. No one had told me how deep and profound he was. And yes, he was definitely a supporter of Vatican II. How could this be? How could someone be so spiritual and yet support Vatican II? This made no sense to my Traditionalist mind.

But there was no denying the great spirituality of Pope Benedict XVI, and I have also found this to be just as true with Pope Francis.  Traditionalists have had a problem with Pope Francis since the moment he appeared on the balcony in St. Peter's Square.  But when I read Pope Francis' words without the filter of any Traditionalist bias, I see a very spiritual and deeply holy man who truly loves Christ and His Church, as I've written on this blog.

So exactly why do Traditionalists have such an aversion to Vatican II and almost everything after it? I've asked a couple of "Trads", and I've been told more than once that the problem with the V2 documents is they contain "time bombs." This term comes from a book entitled, "Liturgical Time Bombs" written by the late Michael Davies, an English convert who strongly supported the Traditional Latin Mass and saw Vatican II as the great enemy of the Church.  The subtitle of this book is "The Destruction of Catholic Faith Through Changes in Catholic Worship."  Not surprisingly, his book is sold by Angelus Press, the publishing arm of the Society of St. Pius X. This is how they describe Mr. Davies' book:

In his latest work, Michael Davies expands on a famous saying of Archbishop Lefebvre, "There were time bombs in the Council." Davies explains, "These 'time bombs' were ambiguous passages inserted in the official documents by the liberal periti or experts - passages which would be interpreted in an untraditional, progressivist sense after the Council closed."

Davies shows how Father (later Archbishop) Annibale Bugnini - before being removed from his position by Pope Paul VI under suspicion of being a Freemason - was able to "reform" the Catholic Mass into the constantly evolving liturgy which continues to self-destruct to this day. Quoting Bishops and Cardinals, as well as liberal periti and Protestant observers, Davies points out the ambiguities or "time bombs" which were built into the Second Vatican Council's document on the liturgy and how they have been detonating ever since in liturgical abuses, both unauthorized and authorized.

Michael Davies concludes with statistics from Kenneth C. Jones's Index of Leading Catholic Indicators showing that the liturgical reforms have borne bitter fruit in a massive loss of Catholic Faith and practice in the Western World. He urges a return to the Traditional Latin Mass, which has always produced great fruit in vocations and sanctity.

Joseph Ratzinger and Yves Congar, periti Vatican II

This is a pretty heavy accusation. Mr. Davies says that the periti, or theological experts, inserted passages into the Vatican II documents that were specifically designed to destroy the Mass and, in effect, destroy the Church itself. Not coincidentally, young Father Joseph Ratzinger was one of those periti.

The major problem with this argument is that while the Bishops definitely relied on their experts, it was the Bishops who voted on and submitted the Vatican II documents to the Holy Father for approval. The responsibility for these documents lies with the hierarchy of the Church, not the periti. Since Catholics also believe that the Church is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, I would submit that the Holy Spirit must have fallen down on the job as well. The periti not only pulled the wool over the eyes of the bishops and Pope, they even out maneuvered the Holy Spirit.

Another major criticism of Vatican II is very much along the same lines as the "time bombs" theory. This theory says that the documents were intentionally left vague and ambiguous. They could be read and interpreted to say almost anything you wanted them to say, and were often contradictory. This has led to confusion and chaos in the Church and caused the great crisis we see around us.

It seems to me that I've heard these same arguments used against another theological document. It's called the Bible. The Bible has been interpreted in more ways than anyone can count. Many accuse it of being vague and/or contradictory. Differing interpretations of the Bible have caused untold chaos and division in the world. Every argument used against the Vatican II documents has been used over the centuries against the written Word of God. In fact, these same arguments have also been used against Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God.

An unfair comparison you say? Ah yes, of course, the Vatican II documents were "pastoral", not "dogmatic", and therefore they are not binding on the Church, so we have every right to reject them. I find this argument to be cognitive dissonance at best and hypocrisy at worst. Traditional Catholics are always accusing their liberal counterparts of being Cafeteria Catholics, picking and choosing what they like and throwing the rest out. Yet, this is exactly what Traditionalists are doing when it comes to Vatican II. They don't like Vatican II, and so they have found a way to reject it. But to reject the Second Vatican Council is to reject the hierarchy, which is the Bishops and the Holy Father.  This is very dangerous because there can be no Catholic Church without them.

To reject the Council is to reject the following words from Blessed Pope Paul VI:

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, assembled in the Holy Spirit and under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we have declared Mother of the Church, and of St. Joseph, her glorious spouse, and of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, must be numbered without doubt among the greatest events of the Church.

Is it really possible for a Catholic to turn a deaf ear to the Pope when he calls something "among the greatest events of the Church"?  The Holy Father gave us the following reasons why the above statement is not hyperbole:

In fact it was (i) the largest in the number of Fathers who came to the seat of Peter from every part of the world, even from those places where the hierarchy has been very recently established. (ii) It was the richest because of the questions which for four sessions have been discussed carefully and profoundly. And (iii) last of all it was the most opportune, because, bearing in mind the necessities of the present day, above all it sought to meet the pastoral needs and, nourishing the flame of charity, it has made a great effort to reach not only the Christians still separated from communion with the Holy See, but also the whole human family.

All of the Holy Fathers since the Second Vatican Council have emphasized how important it is to the Church, and yet many in the Church condemn it as the most destructive event in Church history.  What is the truth?  Are we free to treat the Second Vatican Council as a sort of bishops' tea party that we can take or leave as we desire?  Are we free to condemn Vatican II?

I think it is very important to go back to the time of Vatican II in order to understand what the Church was trying to do. Venerable Fulton Sheen said that we live in a unique age in that this is the first time in history people have lost the sense of sin and no longer recognize right and wrong.  That is now more true than when Bishop Sheen made that statement some 40 years ago.  Also, in the early 1960's, the world was still feeling the effects of two major world wars with untold destruction and loss of life. Mankind had never before experienced suffering on such a large, worldwide scale. There were still many wars around the world, and the United States was about to enter into the most divisive war in its history outside of the Civil War. A large part of the world was imprisoned under Communism, a government based on the rejection of God.  When the Council convened in October 1962, we had just experienced the Cuban missile crisis where America and the Soviet Union came perilously close to nuclear war.  For the first time, we had the ability to literally wipe all life off the planet.

All previous Church councils had been called to address some issue in the Church and/or to define dogma.   The previous councils had been inward looking, dealing with the wounds of the Church.  The Second Vatican Council is unique.  Blessed (soon to be Saint) Pope John XXIII called the Council because he saw not a Church in crisis but a world in crisis with billions of souls at stake, both physically and spiritually. The world was more in need of the saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ than it had ever been.

Blessed Pope John XXIII in his opening statement

In his opening message to the council, which you can read here, Blessed John XXIII said the inspiration for the Second Vatican Council came to him suddenly and unexpectedly:

As regards the initiative for the great event which gathers us here, it will suffice to repeat as historical documentation our personal account of the first sudden bringing up in our heart and lips of the simple words, "Ecumenical Council." We uttered those words in the presence of the Sacred College of Cardinals on that memorable January 25, 1959, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in the basilica dedicated to him. It was completely unexpected, like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts. And at the same time it gave rise to a great fervor throughout the world in expectation of the holding of the Council.

It is interesting to note that the inspiration for the Council came on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. St. Paul was sent not to the Jews, his own people, but to the Gentiles. St. Paul was to preach the Gospel to a world that did not know God. St. Paul was called to open the Church to the world. Does this sound familiar? Just as St. Paul was confronted with a blinding flash of light, Pope John XXIII said the idea of the Council was "like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts." The world of the 20th Century, standing on the brink of its own destruction, was in greater need of the message of the Catholic Church than at any time since the Apostle Paul. It was time for the Church to turn outwards towards a world in desperate need.

Pope John XXIII did not call the Council to change the Church, but to change the way in which the Church related to the world and, more specifically, to re-define her missionary role in the world so as to make the saving message of the Gospel more effective.  From Pope John XXIII:

Illuminated by the light of this Council, the Church -- we confidently trust -- will become greater in spiritual riches and gaining the strength of new energies therefrom, she will look to the future without fear. In fact, by bringing herself up to date where required, and by the wise organization of mutual co-operation, the Church will make men, families, and peoples really turn their minds to heavenly things.

The above statement is truly prescient in that the world of the early 1960's was about to embark on a quest for materialism, hedonism and exaltation of self never before seen in the history of mankind. Technology was about to explode and change the world in ways never imagined. There was now a more urgent need than ever before in history for the Church's message of spirituality to counter the world's descent into itself and away from God. Just as St. Paul was the great missionary to the Gentiles, so the Church as a whole must become the great missionary to those overcome by the false gospel of the exaltation of man.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Blessed Pope John XXIII knew the Church had to intensify her role in the world.  The question is, how do we go out into the world without becoming a part of it?  Reading the documents of Vatican II with this view in mind gives them an entirely different meaning than that seen by people like Michael Davies.

The Second Vatican Council, more than being a pastoral council, was a missionary council, appointing all Catholics to be missionaries where they lived.  The Council's purpose was to look at the world and give us guidelines on how to interact with a world that was rejecting God and headed to self destruction.

Cardinal Francis George

Cardinal Francis George gave a recent talk in Brighton, England which explains this very well. This is from The Pilot:

"The mission of the Church everywhere in every age is to introduce people and the entire world to Jesus Christ. We call the Church 'mother' and mothers introduce their children to other people," he said.

The cardinal cited the original purpose of the council as redefining the relationship between the Church and the world for the sake of a more effective mission in the world. He said he hoped to explore where episcopal and priestly authority fit into the mission.

He said that in calling the council, Pope John XXIII noted divisions -- nation against nation, race against race, and class against class -- as a context to be addressed in the modern world.

"He believed that the Church's internal unity was secure. There was no need to re-examine the deposit of faith, as councils usually did, but there was need to look at it and find new ways for the Church to exercise her mission more effectively, so that the world would find its own integral unity, not exactly the unity of the Church that we now call 'communion' since the council, but rather a solidarity -- the union of the human race," he said.

The cardinal said the unity of the Church and the unity of leaders in communion acted as a level to pursue peace in the world "Pacem In Terris" -- in the words of Pope John XXIII.

"The second Vatican Council is therefore a missionary council. It was called not directly to change the Church, so that she could catch up with a tortured world, but rather to change that world," he said.

"In this sense, Pope Paul VI returned at the very end of the council to Pope John XXIII's intention in calling it, and explained that the Church -- as the Good Samaritan of our age -- sees a wounded world, introduces it to Christ, and binds its wounds through dialogue and service," Cardinal George said.

He said the missionary intent of the council became muted in application afterward, but over time, the Church reestablished its spirituality as a kind of Good Samaritan to the world's injured traveler.

"The method is always dialogue, but the purpose is to heal the world's wounds, and through God's grace, bring the world to its own internal unity," the cardinal said.

A statement from one of Pope Francis' interviews echoes this same idea:

The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. ... And you have to start from the ground up.

The reason so many Traditionalists and others have problems with Vatican II is because they do not understand its purpose. Vatican II is unique among all other councils ever called by the Church. Its purpose was not inward but outward. As Cardinal George said, the purpose of the Council wasn't to change the Church, it was to change the world by opening the Church to the world. If you don't understand or accept that, you will always misinterpret the documents.

Blessed Pope John XXIII explained this in his opening message to the Council. Below are some excerpts:

In calling this vast assembly of bishops, the latest and humble successor to the Prince of the Apostles who is addressing you intended to assert once again the Magisterium (teaching authority), which is unfailing and perdures until the end of time, in order that this Magisterium, taking into account the errors, the requirements, and the opportunities of our time, might be presented in exceptional form to all men throughout the world.

. . . 

The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously. That doctrine embraces the whole of man, composed as he is of body and soul. And, since he is a pilgrim on this earth, it commands him to tend always toward heaven. 

This demonstrates how our mortal life is to be ordered in such a way as to fulfill our duties as citizens of earth and of heaven, and thus to attain the aim of life as established by God. That is, all men, whether taken singly or as united in society, today have the duty of tending ceaselessly during their lifetime toward the attainment of heavenly things and to use, for this purpose only, the earthly goods, the employment of which must not prejudice their eternal happiness.

Could there ever be a more timely message than this in our modern, materialistic world?  Because of the material wealth and advanced technology in our world, we are more separated from God than at any time in history.  In the above statement, Pope John XXIII is warning us that our first and foremost goal in life is the "attainment of heavenly things" and that all earthly things should be used for this purpose only.  Human beings have never had to counter the pull of materialism as strongly as we in our modern times do.  We must be constantly fighting against putting materialism above the Kingdom of God.

Pope John XXIII emphasized how important it is to maintain the doctrine of the Church while spreading the saving message of the Gospel to the world.  The Holy Father said that guarding the doctrine of the Church was understood:

Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure [of the sacred doctrine], as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us, pursuing thus the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries.

The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians, and which is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.

For this a Council was not necessary. 

Pope John XXIII then explains how the method of promoting of the Gospel and the correction of error must change in our modern era, that the Mercy of God must be a central part of promoting the Gospel. Is it a coincidence that our Lord appeared to St. Faustina on the eve of World War II with the message of Divine Mercy? That message is the driving force of the Church today. It should be noted that St. Faustina's message was not accepted by the Church at the time of Vatican II.  In fact, Pope John XXIII himself forbade the circulation of the Divine Mercy images and writings based on a faulty translation of St. Faustina's diary.  Yet it was this same Pope John XXIII who made mercy towards the world a central point of his opening statement. Surely this is the work of the Holy Spirit:

At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity.

Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law, or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.

The above statements perfectly describe our world today: "those ways of life which despise God and His law, or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life" and "violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination". This truly is the world we face today.

When you understand the true purpose of Vatican II, that of mercy in reaching out to a world firmly set on the destructive path of materialism and rejection of God, then statements such as the following will make a lot more sense:

If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge? 

I thought the following was a wonderful analysis of Pope Francis' statement which comes right out of Vatican II.   This is from, of all places, the Huffington Post:

"'Who am I to judge' may end up being the most-quoted five words spoken by a modern pope," said John Thavis, author of the best-selling book The Vatican Diaries and who covered the Vatican for 30 years for the U.S.-based Catholic News Service.

"Pope Francis has realized the simple truth, that when the Church preaches on pelvic and political issues like birth control, abortion and same-sex marriage, many people stop listening. So instead of repeating the rules and revving up the 'culture of death' rhetoric, he's focusing on another essential side of Christianity, mercy and compassion. And of course, that's much more inviting," Thavis said.

When a medic goes out on a battlefield to treat the wounded, he is not there to judge the wounded.  He is there to treat them and possibly save their lives.  That is the world we live in today.  It is a totally secular, humanistic world turned away from God.  The world has become a battlefield littered with the spiritually wounded and dying.  Is it our job as a the Mystical Body of Christ to stand and point fingers at them, telling them what terrible sinners they are, or is it our job to bind their wounds and compassionately lead them to the great Physician, Jesus Christ?  When we see them making steps to turn away from our godless world to the True God, such as a homosexual who "seeks God and has good will", shouldn't we do all we can to encourage them, which is exactly what Pope Francis is demonstrating.

Traditionalists blame this great Council for the woes of the Church and the crisis we see around us. But in a homily on April 16, Pope Francis said the problems in the Church stem from our resistance to the Holy Spirit, and that is exemplified by our resistance to Vatican II, which he says has not been fully implemented.  From Vatican Radio:

Pope Francis’ homily at the mass was centered on the theme of the Holy Spirit and our resistance to it. It took its inspiration from the first reading of the day which was the story of the martyrdom of St. Stephen who described his accusers as stubborn people who were always resisting the Holy Spirit. 

Put frankly, the Pope continued, “the Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the Church forward.” He said that we wish “to calm down the Holy Spirit, we want to tame it and this is wrong.” Pope Francis said “that’s because the Holy Spirit is the strength of God, it’s what gives us the strength to go forward” but many find this upsetting and prefer the comfort of the familiar. 

Nowadays, he went on, “everybody seems happy about the presence of the Holy Spirit but it’s not really the case and there is still that temptation to resist it.” The Pope said one example of this resistance was the Second Vatican council which he called “a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit.” But 50 years later, “have we done everything the Holy Spirit was asking us to do during the Council,” he asked. The answer is “No,” said Pope Francis. “We celebrate this anniversary, we put up a monument but we don’t want it to upset us. We don’t want to change and what’s more there are those who wish to turn the clock back.” This, he went on, “is called stubbornness and wanting to tame the Holy Spirit.”

The Pope said the same thing happens in our personal life. “The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path but we resist this.” He concluded his homily by urging those present not to resist the pull of the Holy Spirit. “Submit to the Holy Spirit,” he said, “which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness.” 

The Second Vatican Council, it seems to me, has in many ways fulfilled the statement of the righteous Simeon to the Blessed Mother when she presented Jesus to the temple:

"Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed--and a sword will pierce even your own soul-- to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."

Truly, the thoughts from many hearts have been revealed in their reaction to the Second Vatican Council.  Liberals have co-opted the Council as a means to change the Church, not the world, and justify their disobedience to God.  They have looked at the Council as the Church saying we can do our own thing and become like the world when it comes to worship and obedience.  Traditionalists have also seen the Council as trying to change the Church, not the world, but they have perceived the Council as the great destroyer of the Traditions of the Church, and have seen resistance to the Council and all who support it as the only legitimate reaction.  Both of these groups have displayed stubbornness and resistance to the Holy Spirit as stated by Pope Francis.

One can only wonder, if Vatican II had been truly embraced by the the members of the Church instead of becoming a source of division, if the people in the Church had taken the missionary aim of Vatican II to heart instead of using it to promote their own agendas, how different might our world be today.  In the meantime, while Catholics fight among themselves, resisting, as Pope Francis said, the work of the Holy Spirit, our world continues to die, spiritually and physically.  

Pope Francis is doing all he can to bring the true message of Vatican II, the message of mercy and compassion, to the Church and to the world.  We need to listen to him and stop fighting him.  We need to hear his words without the filter of our own prejudices.  We need to leave our egos at the door. We need to empty ourselves of ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. As Pope Francis said, "The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path but we resist this. . . .Submit to the Holy Spirit which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness."  

The world awaits the Church.

Credit:  www.sfgate.com

Are You Driven By Faith Or Ideology?

Christianity, before being a moral or an ethic, is the event of love, it is the acceptance of the Person of Jesus.

Pope Benedict XVI

I love the Traditional Latin Mass, which in many circles defines me as a "Traditionalist."  I think of myself as just Catholic, but it seems that in our world today we must have precise labels for each other or we don't know how to relate.

Because I attend the TLM, I also interact with many other "Traditionalists." Lately, especially since the election of Pope Francis, I have felt more and more estranged from many of my fellow "Trads". Like many of them, I use to be big into Vatican II bashing (Vatican II is the "root of all evil"), bishop bashing and even a little Pope bashing now and then, as past posts on this blog will show. However, I have come to realize that that I do not and cannot see the whole picture and it is not my job to sit in public criticism of the hierarchy of the Church.

As a result of my changed attitudes, I am now being shunned by those with whom I once agreed. At a recent all night prayer vigil which we spent before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, one woman, whom I thought was my friend, quite literally turned her back on me after I made it clear that I did not agree with her harsh criticism of the bishops and Pope Francis. How does one spend all night in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and then shun people?

Credit:  www.centerforinquiry.net 

There is another man I know who tells me he goes to Mass twice a day, to adoration several times a week, and spends many hours outside of abortion clinics, and yet also tells me that his "Catholicity" tells him he has to reject Pope Francis and most bishops, most especially Cardinal Dolan. This man has also begun to shun me. How does one engage in all these devout Catholic practices, and yet remain so hard of heart?

This has really puzzled me. How does one profess a deep love for our Lord, and at the same time profess a "my way or the highway" attitude exhibited by so many Traditional Catholics? This can be seen quite clearly on Traditional Catholic blogs, which I have highlighted in past posts.

Pope Francis gave me some answers to my questions in a recent sermon in which he discussed the difference between "faith" and "ideology." Father Z says we need to read Pope Francis through Pope Benedict XVI. This is one time when I think this will be extremely helpful.

Pope Benedict XVI gave us an excellent definition of faith, which can be found here :

Faith, in fact, is an encounter with God who speaks and works in history and converts our daily life, transforming within us mentalities, value judgments, decisions and practical actions. Faith is not an illusion, a flight of fancy, a refuge or sentimentalism; rather it is total involvement in the whole of life and is the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News that can set the whole of the person free.

Pope Francis warns us that if we are not careful, this life giving faith, infused into by the Holy Spirit, can be transformed into a deadly ideology, which does not come from God but from our own fallen nature:

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

I have to say, very sadly, that this is what I am witnessing in many who call themselves Traditional Catholics. As stated by Pope Francis, I do not see the "tenderness, love and meekness" of Jesus Christ. Instead, I see, as Pope Francis says, that they are very rigid and unbending, very sure and unquestioning of themselves.  What is the result of this?

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens. Ideology chases away the people. It creates distances between people and it distances the Church from the people. But it is a serious illness, this ideology in Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the question, no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.”

But how does the life giving faith we receive from Holy Spirit change into a toxic ideology which creates division and drives people away?  From Pope Francis:

“When a Christian does not pray, this happens. And his witness is an arrogant witness.” He who does not pray is “arrogant, is proud, is sure of himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement.” Instead, he said, “when a Christian prays, he is not far from the faith; he speaks with Jesus.”  

Pope Benedict XVI said the same thing using different words:

Many people today have a limited idea of the Christian faith, because they identify it with a mere system of beliefs and values [this is ideology that Pope Francis speaks of] rather than with the truth of a God who revealed himself in history, anxious to communicate with human beings in a tête-à-tête, in a relationship of love with them [this is the faith we receive only through prayer, as Pope Francis said]. In fact, at the root of every doctrine or value is the event of the encounter between man and God in Jesus Christ. Christianity, before being a moral or an ethic, is the event of love, it is the acceptance of the Person of Jesus. For this reason the Christian and Christian communities must first look and make others look to Christ, the true Way that leads to God.  [Our relationship with God can only be grounded with prayer]

But the Traditionalists I know do pray. Many of them faithfully say the Rosary and other devotions. They express a very devout and reverent attitude towards our Lord, as I have shown in the two examples I have given. What is missing?

And, the Pope said, “I say to pray, I do not say to say prayers, because these teachers of the law said many prayers” in order to be seen. Jesus, instead, says: “when you pray, go into your room and pray to the Father in secret, heart to heart.” The pope continued: “IT IS ONE THING TO PRAY, AND ANOTHER THING TO SAY PRAYERS.”

So the Pope is saying that just mouthing words to our Lord does not in itself constitute praying.  Our prayers must come from our heart in order to transform us and make us more like Our Lord, filling us with love for other human beings.  As Pope Benedict XVI would say, our prayers must be an encounter with God.  That cannot happen if we let our own ideology stand in the way.  Pope Francis reminds us here that the Pharisees in Jesus' time said many prayers, and yet they were filled with pride and hatred.

This sermon by Pope Francis, like almost everything the Holy Father says and does, had many "Traditional Catholics" criticizing and decrying His Holiness yet again.  Father Z mentioned this sermon on his blog but shed no light on it whatsoever, instead writing:  "The Pope’s language about ideology is so vague that I can’t for the life of me make out who or what he is talking about. It could be that he has a first name and a last name in mind, but I have no idea who she might be."

I personally don't find the Pope's language to be vague at all.   I say with all sincerity that it is possible that I'm just not smart enough to see the "vagueness" in the Pope's words.  On the contrary, these words of Pope Francis have actually helped bring much clarity to my life.

If Father Z is interested in seeing a shining example of the "ideology" which the Pope speaks of, he should take a look at a video produced by Remnant Newspaper and the Remnant Forum, a Traditionalist Catholic group. In this video, Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara discuss and criticize this sermon given by Pope Francis.  You can go here to watch the entire video. This video is an excellent example of the Pope's words, "when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements."

Michael Matt starts out with a very negative statement, "Is this another sort of papal bombshell in the making?"  Chris Ferrara laughs and shakes his head and says, "One of many.  I mean, the ground is littered with craters from the bombs that have been dropping from the mouth of this Pope."  Ferrara goes on to say that the Pope's statements are a "false disjunction that is typical of modernist thought as if there is a dichotomy between saying and praying prayers."  Well, yes actually, there is a huge difference between "saying" and "praying" prayers,  and Chris Ferrara, who holds himself out to be a very learned Catholic, should know that.

Michael Matt responds by saying, "Am I being paranoid?  When I read this today, it struck me once again, since Tradition minded Catholics are among the few who are still saying rosaries. . . is this another, just another sort of brush off against the Traditionalists on the part of Pope Francis?"  I am really amazed that neither Michael Matt nor Chris Ferrara seem to be aware that our Holy Father prays three rosaries every day. He has led public rosaries several times since being elected Pope, the latest being on the day of prayer and fasting on September 7 which he called in regard to the war in Syria. On August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, Pope Francis said the following:

“Mary joins us, she fights at our side. She supports Christians in the fight against the forces of evil. Especially through prayer, through the rosary. Hear me out, the rosary... Do you pray the Rosary each day? I don't know, are you sure? There we go!”

Pope Francis publicly praying the Rosary

Read the entire article on this sermon here. This is only one of many statements by Pope Francis in promoting the Rosary. But you wouldn't know this from listening to Michael Matt and Chris Ferrara. They have no qualms in falsely accusing the Pope of bashing the Rosary. 

Chris Ferrara actually made a very astute statement in the following: "Obviously, if one recites the Rosary in the manner of a machine gun, a completely rote manner without meditating on the mysteries, then one is not really praying. If that all is that Pope Francis means, that is completely unobjectionable."

In light of the Pope's constant promotion of the Rosary, what else could he mean? Yet, Ferrara and Matt just go right past this. Ferrara puts words in the Pope's mouth when he says: "The idea that saying prayers without actually having a spiritual consolation or actively meditating and seeking communion with God is in itself an ideological activity that should be rejected by Catholics. This is just bad pastoral advice."   Ferrara is drawing this false conclusion from the Pope's statement that we should go to our room and pray to the Father in secret, which is a quote from Our Lord found in Matthew 6:6.

In actuality, this is a complete misrepresentation of the words of Pope Francis (and Jesus Christ). The Pope never said anything about "spiritual consolation." Many saints, if not most, went through long periods in their lives when there was no spiritual consolation. That can actually be a sign of great holiness, as we saw with Blessed Mother Teresa, who spent 50 years in the Dark Night. Pope Francis is obviously talking about the need for prayers to be more than just words, empty gestures and motions. Shouldn't that always be our goal? Why would anyone criticize this statement? Yet, that is just what Ferrara and Matt do. Ferrara actually accuses Pope Francis of "anti-pastoral naivety." Ferrara falsely accuses Pope Francis of saying that our prayers mean nothing unless we achieve the "unitive state". Michael Matt chimes in and says, "there is a certain Protestant flavor to it. I'm not saying that is what was intended, but there is a certain Protestant flavor."

Matt then goes on to state that Pope Francis is "giving the impression" that he "doesn't care" for the rosary, "and that repetitive prayer is useless or that memorized praying is not praying at all."  Ferrara responds with, "Yea, where is the vaunted sympathy for the sinner and weak of heart?"  He then says, "This is part of a pattern.  It seems there is an inescapable pattern of a total lack of sympathy for Catholics of Traditional orientation."  He then goes on to recite a litany of statements Pope Francis made that are supposedly attacking Traditional Catholics.  He carries this argument to an extreme by saying that criticism of Traditionals means that the Pope is actually attacking all traditions in the Church and is ready to throw it all away.  

Traditionalists have to stop playing the victim. All this does is drive people away from them, just as Pope Francis warned in his sermon. Instead of immediately coming up with counter-arguments and criticisms to everything the Pope says, they would do much better to humbly and prayerfully meditate on the words of the Vicar of Christ to determine if these words have any relevancy in their lives. Humility is the key to everything.

Ferrara and Michael Matt continue to discuss the Pope's sermon using a totally false premise by continuing to attribute ideas to the Pope which he never conveyed in any way. Michael Matt says, "If memorized prayers are somehow problematic [something the Pope never said], what do you do with all the indulgenced prayers?" Ferrara says this shows the "cruel school master", again accusing the Pope of not caring about people. This is a pure straw man argument because the Pope has never at any time said we should not use the memorized prayers of the Church.

Ferrara then says "I'm sorry if I sound acerbic and sarcastic, but I've had enough of this!!"  Yes, Mr. Ferrara, you sound very strident, and that is not going to draw anyone to Christ, exactly what Pope Francis was warning against.  

Michael Matt, later in the video, says, "What is going on?  I don't want to believe that the Holy Father is intending to say these things and I want the spin.  I want the good, favorable positive spin, but he keeps saying things that are getting increasingly difficult to spin in a Catholic direction. What in the world is going on?"

Ferrara once again accuses Pope Francis of being sympathetic to modernists and wanting to destroy everything in the Church that is not in line with the evil Vatican II.  Here are two men who hold themselves out to be good, loyal Catholics but yet are warning other Catholics against this "liberal, modernist" Pope who is seemingly out to destroy the Church.    

Towards the end of the video Michael Matt laments, "I look to Pope Francis and I don't see any clarity.  In fact, I'm finding more confusion looking to Rome right now, and I know I'm not alone in that."  Ferrara responds by saying that he loves the Church and reveres the Pope and the office that he occupies.  He said he was hopeful when Pope Francis was elected.  "I don't enjoy sitting here doing a postmortem on the latest papal statements that make the Church and us look ridiculous, which they do."  He says he wants The Remnant to be a "papal loyalist newspaper" as he says they were under Pope Benedict XVI, basically conceding that they are not loyal to Pope Francis.  

Ferrara says that he now has a "queasy feeling":  "we haven't been to this place yet in the post conciliar epic.  This is a new destination on the train ride to disaster."  Matt responds, "I think I'm going to let that be the last word because that pretty much sums it up.  I don't know what to say to people other than to agree with you absolutely this is terrifying."  Ferrara tells us that "the enemy is inside the household of the faith and is running through all the rooms of the house right now." 

How does this type of thinking happen?  How do supposedly loyal, devout Catholics come to see the Holy Father as the enemy of the Church? As Pope Francis, said, they are a "disciple of their ideology", and they will attack and destroy anything that threatens their ideology, even if it includes the Holy Father himself. Nowhere in this 27 minute video is there even a hint of humility, of questioning themselves and where they are going with their often blatantly false accusations and misrepresentations of the Pope's words. 

I am not questioning the sincerity of these two men or even of those who feel they are justified in shunning me. My prayer is that they will truly pray as Pope Francis has exhorted us to do and get beyond their ideology, which is destroying them. We must remember that Satan can appear as an angel of light, and his greatest trick with believers is to make us believe that we are right and everyone else, especially Church hierarchy, is wrong. This is the genesis of all heresy. As the Apostle Paul warned us in I Cor. 10:12, "Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

It seems that no one is more sure of their "firm footing"' than Traditionalists, and therefore, no one should be questioning themselves on a regular basis more than Traditionalists. We need to constantly be asking ourselves and asking God to reveal to us whether we are truly following the lead of the Holy Spirit, or blindly following an ideology born of our pride and our fallen nature.