Pope Francis: Sorting the church into ‘right vs. left, progressive vs. traditionalist’ betrays its true nature

[Motherwit]

Blaming one another for the fragility of the Catholic Church and the errors of its members increases conflict, which diminishes the church’s ability to share the Gospel and increases opportunities for the devil to work, Pope Francis told members of the Roman Curia.

Crises are a normal part of life, including the life of faith, and must be accepted as challenges to discern and to change, leaving behind what is not essential, Pope Francis said Dec. 21.

“Crisis generally has a positive outcome,” he said, “whereas conflict always creates discord and competition, an apparently irreconcilable antagonism that separates others into friends to love and enemies to fight. In such a situation, only one side can win.”

In his annual pre-Christmas meeting with Curia officials, Pope Francis insisted the world should learn from the coronavirus pandemic, especially about how all people are brothers and sisters, that all have been made vulnerable by the threat of disease and all have been impacted spiritually, socially and economically by the pandemic.

In the same way that the crisis is not a judgment on the world but a challenge to change, he said, people should not judge the church “hastily on the basis of the crises caused by scandals past and present.”

And, just as a global health crisis is a time for people to come together and help each other, the pope said, crises in the church call for gathering more intensely in prayer and resisting the temptation to increase divisions.

“A crisis is itself movement, a part of our journey,” he said. “Conflict, on the other hand, is a false trail leading us astray, aimless, directionless and trapped in a labyrinth; it is a waste of energy and an occasion for evil.”

Putting the church and its members into categories of conflict – “right versus left, progressive versus traditionalist” – makes it “fragmented and polarized, distorting and betraying its true nature.”

The church is “a body in continual crisis, precisely because she is alive,” Pope Francis said. But it must never become “a body in conflict, with winners and losers, for in this way she would spread apprehension, become more rigid and less synodal, and impose a uniformity far removed from the richness and plurality that the Spirit has bestowed on his church.”

Pope Francis: Sorting the church into ‘right vs. left, progressive vs. traditionalist’ betrays its true nature | America Magazine

 

[Motherwit]

While a crisis forces people to rally hidden resources, “conflict always tries to find ‘guilty’ parties to scorn and stigmatize, and ‘righteous’ parties to defend,” the pope said. “This loss of the sense of our common belonging helps to create or consolidate certain elitist attitudes and ‘cliques’ that promote narrow and partial mindsets that weaken the universality of our mission.”

“The church is always an earthen vessel, precious for what it contains and not for the way it may appear,” Pope Francis told the Curia officials.

“These days it seems evident that the clay of which we are made is chipped, damaged and cracked,” he said. The response isn’t to make the fractures worse, but “to strive all the more, lest our frailty become an obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel rather than a testimony to the immense love with which God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us and continues to love us.”

 

[ioannes_pius]

Thank you, Holy Father. Very cool!

 

[StudentMI]

To be honest, he’s kind of just as guilty of that as others. He’s spoken before of traditionalists in a way that labeled them pharisaical.

This is a common tactic used by many on both sides, predominantly the left, which basically amounts to gaslighting. “We need to come together and stop going by terms like left and right and discuss the issues maturely,” in reality amounts to “you need to accept my premises and arrive at the same conclusion as me.”

 

[Feanor2]

To be honest, he’s kind of just as guilty of that as others. He’s spoken before of traditionalists in a way that labeled them pharisaical.

This is a common tactic used by many on both sides, predominantly the left, which basically amounts to gaslighting. “We need to come together and stop going by terms like left and right and discuss the issues maturely,” in reality amounts to “you need to accept my premises and arrive at the same conclusion as me.”

I do think there is a difference between a simple preference for traditional devotions and a mindset that, unfortunately, runs rampant in the Traditionalis community.

If it were limited to a simple preference that would be fine but we see tone of divisiveness and fracture.

I don’t think the Pope is criticizing people who prefer the traditional but more the Churchmillitant, Crisis, and Remnant folks.

 

[StudentMI]

Which just confirms what I wrote, to be honest.

 

[Feanor2]

Which just confirms what I wrote, to be honest.

But why do we see a preference for traditional practices encumbered by the baggage of divisive vitriol and angst?

I actually prefer many traditional practices but you won’t catch me on Remnant, One Peter Five etc.

Or going on about the Pachamama and the Wuhan Devil.

 

[StudentMI]

But why do we see a preference for traditional practices encumbered by the baggage of divisive vitriol and angst?

Why have I seen liberal Church goers mock traditionalists and those who ‘like Latin’ as antiquated old fogies, or act like refusing to hold your hand at the Our Father is an act of heresy? I can go on with examples like that all day. I was even told by a Youth Minister that the FSSP was heretical “like the SSPX.”

I actually prefer many traditional practices but you won’t catch me on Remnant, One Peter Five etc.

That’s a shame as 1P5 has many great articles ranging from Lovecraft to Liturgy. But then again it just reinforces what I wrote.

 

[mojoalthor]

To be honest, he’s kind of just as guilty of that as others. He’s spoken before of traditionalists in a way that labeled them pharisaical.

Historically, prior to the church establishing the canon of book, many thought Paul’s letters should not belong. I imagine they thought him too pharisaical.

 

[StudentMI]

I imagine they thought him too pharisaical.

Many find him so nowadays. Witness the Church granting imprimaturs to copies of his Epistles that dismiss his writing as ‘chauvinist’ and ‘bigoted’ and ‘a product of the culture of the time.’

Ultimately what drives what may be called my traditionalism is the modern tendency to say that x is actually y. I can’t reconcile that with common sense nor with what I can see are the plain teachings of the Church of past centuries. Oddly enough the modern Church that teaches such primacy of conscience has no room for a conscience such as mine that refuses to say that x equals y.

 

[Motherwit]

To be honest, he’s kind of just as guilty of that as others. He’s spoken before of traditionalists in a way that labeled them pharisaical.

This is a common tactic used by many on both sides, predominantly the left, which basically amounts to gaslighting. “We need to come together and stop going by terms like left and right and discuss the issues maturely,” in reality amounts to “you need to accept my premises and arrive at the same conclusion as me.”

What Pope Francis has targeted is nothing to do with left/right and we know that because the majority of what would be labelled right wing conservative Bishops and clergy around the world are all on board with Francis mission and can see what he is saying. (Let us never forget that the loud few are not representative of all) It’s the same thing Jesus did. While He was very clear about the gravity of other sins, Jesus was infinitely loving and merciful towards that type of sinner and that was His superpower. Mercy and kindness melt sinners hearts which is still the case today.

The sinners that Jesus targeted with the harsh hand of judgment were the hypocrits who while acting like they were holy and knowledgable, were dark, mean and prideful inside. ie the pharisees and those who traded off religion in the Temple. Lest we forget that pride, rigidity, judgmentalness and greed are the death of the soul, Pope Francis like Jesus has spoken with Scriptural warning about them for all our sakes.

 

[StudentMI]

Lest we forget that pride, rigidity, judgmentalness and greed are the death of the soul, Pope Francis like Jesus has spoken with Scriptural warning about them for all our sakes.

As I said, gaslighting.

 

[yankeesouth]

Which just confirms what I wrote, to be honest.

Yes I noticed crux, the reporter and america mags were not mentioned.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

Lest we forget that pride, rigidity, judgmentalness and greed are the death of the soul, Pope Francis like Jesus has spoken with Scriptural warning about them for all our sakes.

As I said, gaslighting.

I have no idea what you are trying to assert. There is no doubt that if we take the Scriptures seriously, that those sins are deadly and Christians should know them and shy away from them with passion for their souls sake.

 

[StudentMI]

From Dietrich von Hildebrand:

When I was living in Austria before the Second World War, there was a Catholic professor of philosophy in Vienna who continually made novenas for the Nazification of Austria. I was his radical opponent, and he fought against the anti-Nazi review I was then publishing. Once, the Archbishop of Salzburg, a rather mediocre, jovial man, but kind and very friendly, approached me and suggested I should make peace with this professor. He argued that it was so important that Catholics should not fight each other, that there should be unity and peace among Catholics. I replied, “I have no personal feud with him, but if he professes false theories, which are incompatible with Christ, then I feel obliged in my conscience to fight him. One cannot make peace at the cost of truth, and especially not at the cost of divine truth. This would imply an offense of God.” Unfortunately, he did not understand my argument. “But professor,” he said, “you are, after all, a friendly man; make peace with him — the important thing is that there be no split between Catholics…”
No. A far more important thing is that there be no Catholics — no priests, no lay people, no bishops — who profess heresy, who profess theories incompatible with the deposit of Catholic faith. The fact that many orthodox Catholics fight these heresies is not deplorable; on the contrary, we should rejoice that there still are faithful Catholics, and that they raise their voices against heresies, for God expects that of them. St. Paul says there always will be heresies and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity that is based on the incompatibility of truth and falsehood cannot and should not be avoided.

 

[SanAndreas]

'The tragic story of this failed pontificate advances with a pressing succession of twists and turns. Not a day passes: from the most exalted throne the Supreme pontiff proceeds to dismantle the see of Peter, using and abusing its supreme authority, not to confess but to deny; not to confirm but to mislead; not to unite but to devide; not to build but to demolish.‘ Abs. Carlo Maria Vigano, April 2020.

 

[yankeesouth]

I think Pope Francis shows rigidity in his use of the word ‘rigid’. lol

Anyway, I am reminded of the dubia from the four Cardinals. I believe it was hinted at that they were ‘rigid’ and ‘pharisaical’ when they were trying to resolve conflict…and ignored.

The Four Cardinals and the Encyclical in the Room – Catholic World Report

We have noted,” they stated matter-of-factly, “that even within the episcopal college there are contrasting interpretations of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia . … [W]e want to help the Pope to prevent divisions and conflicts in the Church, asking him to dispel all ambiguity.

 

[Motherwit]

von Hildebrands sentiments transpose more accurately to today’s Bishops and Priests who prayed to Trumpify the US out of misplaced passion. Neither did he accuse Pope Pius XII because of his prudent silence about the Nazi’s. Von Hilderbrand was known as a faithful son of the Church and would never have accused a Pope and the Magisterium of heresy.

 

[StudentMI]

Anyway, I am reminded of the dubia from the four Cardinals. I believe it was hinted at that they were ‘rigid’ and ‘pharisaical’ when they were trying to resolve conflict…and ignored.

Very true.

 

[StudentMI]

Considering he wrote three books criticizing the changes after the Council and his wife gave an interview to Church Militant, I’m not sure he’d be quiet today and on board the Francis train.