Pope Francis Must Resign: Archbishop Vigano

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7_Sorrows said:
A managerial problem that has been allowed to go on for too long and no one seems capable of finding an answer to.
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I agree. The root cause of the abuse crisis is a failure in governance, specifically, the management responsibility to control. Of the three vocations all Catholics receive at Baptism (priest, prophet and king) only the priestly calling – one who prays for the people (administer sacraments) – is natural to the priesthood. The other callings require other gifts not always present in those called to clerical life.

As we all know, the gift of the prophetic voice is spread throughout all the People of God. Certainly, many priests have the gift but not all. Many outside of the clergy speak and write about our faith in ways which clearly evidence the gift in them. However, those charged with preserving our deposit of faith, I think, must also control who may proclaim that faith with authority.

But the gift of governance – the ability to plan, organize, direct and control – is sadly lacking in our priests and, in most seminaries, not even taught. John XXIII, when asked "How many people work in the Vatican?" replied, "Probably about half". Although humorous, the comment begs for managerial attention. Many pastors administer million dollar parish operations; bishops administer multi-million dollar dioceses. And, due to the shortage of priests, the time from ordination to pastoral administration is brief, perhaps too brief to prepare these priests for duties beyond their formal training.

Why is governance a priestly responsibility in the Church? Historically, the episcopate assumed the power to govern when civil society collapsed and the only institution with a judicial system was the Church. As always, governance requires literacy and training, usually in promulgating and effecting rules. During the Dark Ages those credentials were held almost exclusively members of the hierarchy. Today, the laity is no longer illiterate. Perhaps, the Spirit moves us to a change in governance of His one, holy catholic and apostolic church.
 
Yes, Pope Francis has said enough. He’s said he will not say any more. Since actions speak louder than words, refusing to say more is good. It is time to now let his actions do the talking.
 
To lay the blame on governance is wrong!

Christ established the hierarchy. He sent the Holy Spirit to enable His Church to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the faithful in His name. The apostles, the first bishops of the Church, were given the power to teach, sanctify and rule the members. He intended this power be exercised until the end of time through the bishops, the successors of the apostles.

Christ gave special power to St Peter by making him the head of the apostles and the chief teacher and ruler of the entire Church. All popes, as successors of Peter, are Vicars of Christ on earth: Christ is the invisible head, the pope is the visible head.

Priests help the bishops in their care of souls -primarily in dispensing the sacraments of the Church and offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Divine Liturgy according to my Rite;-)

Laity help the Church in Her care of souls by living holy lives that reflect credit on the Church and by co-operating with their bishops and priests.

Christ established this hierarchy. Who are we to re-make it in our own image?

If it appears broken today, it’s because we aren’t doing as Christ intended. We aren’t concerned with the salvation of souls, but have set temporal affairs above the eternal ones.
 
You make it sound as if the hierarchy of The Church is somehow protected from doing wrong. This is wrong. And the blatant evidence of bishops covering sex abuse cases male it clear it is a problem with governance.
 
I make no such claim that they are protected from harm…sorry if I gave that impression.

I agree! There IS a problem with governance. But we have NO authority over the hierarchical structure Christ established. For the laity to petition and expose the rot is good and necessary. For the laity to usurp the authority is wrong. The ONLY one who can clean up this mess is the Vicar of Christ on earth. He has the authority over bishops -it is through him that authority flows.

Should he refuse to act, it’s time for us to hunker down with repentant and contrite hearts for our own sins and failings… and prepare for God to intervene!
 
AMEN!

I don’t think we have even begun yet to see how horrible this is going to get. We need to prepare our hearts. When things appear they can get no worse, they still will. And then God will show His hand. Now is the time to examine our own consciences and to make them right with the Lord. Prayer, fasting, true repentance and penance will mean nothing if we don’t purify ourselves first.
 
Like him or hate him, Fr. Martin sums it up well here:
Dear friends: The most shocking aspect of last week’s coordinated attack on Pope Francis (thanks to Archbishop Vigano’s “testimony,” which is being discredited by the hour) is how many former champions of the papacy rushed to attack, condemn and attempt to delegitimize Pope Francis.

It caused immense pain among the faithful, and among clergy and religious, at a time when many, if not most, were profoundly demoralized by the horrors of the sex abuse crisis.

Some US Catholics, even some bishops, who under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI acted as if any disagreement whatsoever with a Pope was tantamount to dissent (or heresy), immediately heaped scorn on Francis, called for his resignation, and publicly side with his accuser, based on unsubstantiated charges.

But now what will they do? Because the Vigano “testimony” is being discredited hour by hour, piece by piece.

The latest reports (see the post from Crux below) show that Vigano’s much-touted “sanctions” against the former Cardinal McCarrick appear to have been “private,” never formalized by Benedict, and were more of a recommendation, which blows the bottom out of Vigano’s central charge against Francis.

If they were not formalized, and were not applied even under Benedict (as Mike O’Loughlin of America has shown), this undercuts, if not entirely destroys, Vigano’s “testimony” against Francis’s supposed role in “enabling” McCarrick.

That is, Vigano himself did not go out of his way to enforce the sanctions against someone whose conduct outraged him. How, then, does he explain that while blasting Francis for not doing so?

The question, then, ends up turning more on the oversight, or non-oversight, of an abuser not by Francis, but by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and other Curial officials at the time. Vigano’s “testimony” appears to invite scrutiny on some unintended people.

Here’s the sad point: Many Catholics, including bishops, who under John Paul and Benedict professed their lifelong fidelity to the office of Pope, viciously turned on a Pope that they didn’t like, based on one disgruntled former nuncio’s 11-page, unsubstantiated screed.
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Part II:
Compare one prelate’s previous comments about the papacy: “I express my deepest gratitude to His Holiness for the great confidence which he has placed in me, and I renew my commitment to serve Him, as Shepherd of the universal Church, in total fidelity and with all my being."

That was after he was named a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. Last week, that same cardinal said publicly that it was “licit” to call for the Pope’s resignation.

Some US bishops immediately sided with Vigano, one calling him a “man of truth, faithfulness and integrity” while studiously avoiding the same words for Francis, heedlessly inching us closer to the possibility of schism, or at least more serious division, in the US.

And some of the same US bishops who, last week, suddenly professed their outrage over sex abuse as soon it seemed that it could be used to take down Francis, were, a few days before, completely quiet about the topic, even in the face of the damning Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report.

It was the weaponization of the abuse crisis, using the suffering of children and young people to bring down Francis, to increase division among the faithful and to advance their own ecclesial agenda against, to quote that same cardinal, “The Shepherd of the Universal Church.”

All this darkness caused great pain, confusion and anger among the faithful, and among clergy and religious, and distracted us from the real work, which needs to be taken up again, of preventing abuse.

Together, united, as one body.
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Oh, and victims of sex abuse aren’t buying Vigano’s report outright either…
“The infighting between factions of the hierarchy does nothing to protect children around the world,” said Becky Ianni, board member of SNAP. “Any attempt by Viganò and others to use the abuse crisis and victims of clergy sexual abuse as leverage in the struggle for church power must stop.”
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gracepoole said:
Compare one prelate’s previous comments about the papacy: “I express my deepest gratitude to His Holiness for the great confidence which he has placed in me, and I renew my commitment to serve Him, as Shepherd of the universal Church, in total fidelity and with all my being."

That was after he was named a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. Last week, that same cardinal said publicly that it was “licit” to call for the Pope’s resignation.
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You can serve the Pope and still think he should resign. If the allegations are true I do think that Pope Francis should resign. I think we need a completely new hierarchy.
 
And you think that JPII should have resigned as well, then, since he’s been implicated by Vigano?
 
kyrie03 said:
To lay the blame on governance is wrong!

Christ established the hierarchy. He sent the Holy Spirit to enable His Church to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the faithful in His name. The apostles, the first bishops of the Church, were given the power to teach, sanctify and rule the members. He intended this power be exercised until the end of time through the bishops, the successors of the apostles.
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Christ did not establish a ruling hierarchy. He commanded his disciples to minister, not rule. The institutional church with a hierarchical structure evolved in the first four centuries.

Changes in the institutional organization also changed ministry. Early Christianity developed a visible human organization, known as clergy, primarily to administer the sacraments. These successors to the twelve apostles came to be called bishops and, under their leadership, the Church grew organically for the first four centuries. Bishops and their helpers, presbyters and deacons, instructed and baptized the catechumens bringing them into the community. The new members in time catechized others and the movement grew at a natural geometric rate. By the early fourth century the number of Christians had so increased that some form of recognition became inevitable. Legally tolerated by Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313), Christianity quickly flourished in the following decades becoming the imperial religion in 381 under Emperor Theodosius.

Theodosius’ act accelerated Christianity’s growth rate (being Christian now had positive political consequences; not being Christian, negative consequences) beyond the organization’s ability to indoctrinate newcomers in the ordinary way. As a result, new members were poorly formed in the faith, and heresies resulted. The Church, to protect its unity, responded by centralizing its authority. Ecumenical in their formation, but central in their governance, the early councils prototyped the preferred method, the conciliar method, for resolving attacks on the oneness of the Church. This new ecclesiology for projecting its authority emphasized the institutional model of Church and mimicked the political structure of the time, centralized Roman governance.

Perfecting and adapting its organization to fight the heresies of its time directly affected ministry because the efforts at centralizing authority inevitably capsize local authority. As mentioned above, the local authority, although certainly providing some governance, was primarily ministering the sacraments to the community. The idea of “office” now developed within the Church organization. The local churches had designated their ministers based upon the needs of the community and the gifts, or charisms, of individuals in the community. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, the source of all charisms, provided the community with ministers (the bishop and his deacons) to teach, heal and govern as needed.
 
A new notion of “office,” while not totally displacing the Holy Spirit as the ultimate source of charism, instigated a process of ordination as an intermediate and necessary step to the empowerment of those in pastoral care. By virtue of ordination, the individual became endowed with the authority and responsibility of the pastoral office. Teachers, healers and rulers who were, heretofore, acknowledged by local acclamation, now required official proclamation and that proclamation was no longer local, but from afar.

A second ministerial effect of centralizing authority is the creation of hierarchy. Presbyters, who worked alongside the bishops in joint care of their communities, had become by the end of the fifth century, the bishop’s assistant. The rapid spread of Christianity into the countryside created the need for community leaders outside the cities where the bishop’s had established their sees. Losing their prior lateral relationship, the presbyters now reported to the bishop, becoming the permanent, but subordinate pastors of these rural churches.

A third ministerial effect flows from the “hierarchy” effect: the objectification of the laity. If members are not “official” (recognized somewhere in the hierarchical structure) then they are without authority. Having no active ministerial role to play in the institution, the “non-ordained” or laity, become the passive objects of the ordained. The laity, perforce, assume a passive role as the people “to be saved” in the church.
 
@gracepoole Vigano’s testimony has been discredited? By whom? When? Source?

When people like Fr. Martin make statements like that (putting “testimony” in quotes, etc.) it looks as if they are dismissing the allegations out of hand simply because they don’t want them to be true.
 
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I don’t see how Viganò’s testimony has been discredited. That said, the call for resignation doesn’t make sense. But I haven’t seen one bishop follow Viganò on that. They have all called for an investigation, which there should be.
 
I think the “discredited” part of that statement is just wishful thinking on Fr. Martin’s part.
 
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