Pope Francis answers questions from journalists aboard his flight back to Rome from Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023, after his participation in World Youth Day. (CNS photo/kLola Gomez)
By Father Kevin M Cusick
Pope Francis said, “Move on.” I say he might want to follow his own advice.
Those were his words after he learned that some American Catholics reacted with dismay when he criticized, condemned and cursed them on the international stage provided him by one of his in-flight press conferences that have become a regular feature of his international travel on return legs to Rome. See https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pope-keen-move-on-after-criticism-us-catholic-church-2023-08-31/)
Faithful Catholics in the Synodal Church need to just “move on”, while those who defy settled matters of faith and morals are given red-carpet and “Who am I to judge” carte blanche treatment. Bizarre to say the least. Just another in the long series of inversions under which Catholics have had to suffer in this nightmare “porntificate”.
Yes: Pope Francis, for his own spiritual health as well as ours, needs to follow his own spiritual counsel and just “move on”. Any spiritual director will tell you that his words and actions have consistently betrayed a spiritual sickness or ill health of some nature. He calls for gentleness and mercy while beating up on the Catholics who are most faithful to what being Catholic actually means.
What gave rise to all this? A Portuguese Jesuit brought upthe subject of American Catholics in conversation with the Pope, providing yet another opportunity for papal target practice.
What do we know? The perpetual need for straw men is a common technique for those who feel the need to hide their true agenda. Make someone else the bad guy to get yourself off the hook lest somebody discover your own misdeeds. A common recourse for the corrupt.
I experienced this gaslighting and projection under corrupt commands in the military. Place a young Catholic priest in an environment already predisposed to anti-Catholic prejudice, as is the Navy, and you have the perfect distraction. One chaplain superior is shopping the crew for husband number three while plotting her second divorce and another is hitting it off in the gym with her on-board girlfriend. Fraternization, anyone? Both need to protect their career and pensions while pursuing their sexual peccadilloes. The Catholic chaplain is the perfect foil. The technique? Magnify his least shortfalls, of which regulation-heavy military life aboard ship at close quarters is rife, and thus employ projection and distraction to keep prying eyes far away from personal infractions of a far more serious nature.
How does this help shed light on the current malaise in the Church? When Archbishop Fernandez, an old Argentinian papal crony and new Vatican doctrinal czar, shortly to be made a prince of the Church, verbalizes such mental castles in the air as blessing same-sex marital simulation and proceeds to connect them with a “living and active gift” of the pope which he calls the “doctrine of Pope Francis”we are fairly warned. When he proceeds to ominously threaten those who may be contemplating any words which can be characterized as “judging” the “doctrine of the Holy Father”, we ain't seen nothin’ yet.
The foretaste and promise of yet another inquisition which threatens to put Savanarola to shame. The gaslighting that accompanies such childish fantasies accuses bishops who dare to question such tripe as guilty of claiming to have the special “inspiration of the Holy Spirit”. All of which is irrelevant. The simple faith of a young home-schooled Catholic is enough to disprove such an imposture.
When we speak of the competency of the pope, we concern ourselves with matters of faith and morals spelled out for all in the Catechism. Yes, the pope can deepen our understanding of such by declaring infallibly what we already know to be true. Two cases of such extraordinary exercise of infallibility, a concept defined by Vatican I, are the papal declarations of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Lady. These were consonant with Scripture and Tradition, already “true”, and later given greater prominence among the articles of belief necessary for salvation.
The Assumption and Immaculate Conception did not contradict any matters in the Catholic Deposit of Faith already universally accepted as true, as does the attempt to approve sacrilege with Amoris Laetitiae, calling as it does for Communion for adulterers and other souls in mortal sin without benefit of repentance and absolution. It serves not at all as a pattern for the nonsense of “blessing” sin, about which Fernandez publicly fantasizesin a number of his many interviews given after the shock of his poor qualifications for the new position dawned on already shell-shocked Catholics.
There are plenty of indications that the Rome October Synod will further seek to concretize these and other inversions of settled moral and sacramental teaching. This while Francis meets with cronies in the Vatican to deliberate the possibility of demanding the resignation of an outspoken and beleaguered Bishop Strickland.
We suppress incredulous laughter as we learn, reportedly, that the courageous behavior of the Tyler, Texas, prelate is to be characterized a “scandal”; this after the many missteps of a pope who says and does things a pope should never say and do, a true continuing scandal with no course corrections in sight. If that becomes yet another decapitation in a pattern of such attacks on local churches it will serve merely as the tip of the iceberg in the systematic dismantling of yet another orthodox and burgeoning local church.
So what do we do? When I am asked by Catholics suffering “heresy PTSD” I always counsel they focus first on their own vocation to marriage and family life, and see first and most importantly to their responsibility for forming their children as saints. This is our daily work and calls for our utmost efforts. At the same time, do not let Pope Francis and Roman synodal fantasies distract from this one task about which the Lord will ask you at your final judgement.
What did I do about the shipboard gaslighting and projection back in my three years aboard the aircraft carrier? I took my orders from Christ and blithely and confidently did the work for which the Lord sent me to the ship. On the many good days I focused on the spiritual care of the many sincere Catholic believers on board. I never truly felt alone, no matter the sometimes thinly veiled jealousy and spite among fellow chaplains and departmental staff. We always without fail had real pastoral work to do as the true Church of Christ, always present among ships’ company. The Lord consoled me greatly in those days and my Catholic flock reminded me daily of the unimportance of the passing vanity of vanities which obsess the corrupt, who will always surround us in this vale of tears and sometimes, also, even aboard the barque of Peter.
We pray, worship and love as the Lord commands, though we smile or weep as history and fortunes material or spiritual rise or fall with the passing of years. We will never fail to feel His comforting hand upon our shoulders as we move always forward in Him, refusing the vanity of distractions which will always accompany us as we remain faithful in the big and the little ways. If we listen even with the simple faith of a child we always hear His voice encouraging and strengthening us for the journey, no matter how brief or how long in duration. We will never trade the inheritance of faith and morals for a mess of pottage no matter the credentials of those who seek to disserve our salvation.
Yes, Pope Francis should just “move on”. And we welcome him along on the journey. “Excelsior”. Onward and upward.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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