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

[StudentMI]

So what you’re saying is because you have a friend or two who is liberal but doesn’t care about ‘dubia’, that’s what most Catholics really ARE, and all the articles and posts which represent the (name removed by moderator)ut of thousands of people really ‘aren’t.

@Motherwit is saying nearly the same thing.

To be honest I think I’m done with this thread. It’s simply liberals gaslighting and slamming traditionalists. So, have at it, and wonder why your Church is losing members.

 

[Motherwit]

Hmmm. And here’s the thing, most of us have a fairly limited circle of acquaintances to have these discussions with. Yet most blogs etc have dozens or hundreds of articles about these issues, with hundreds of comments each.

So what you’re saying is because you have a friend or two who is liberal but doesn’t care about ‘dubia’, that’s what most Catholics really ARE, and all the articles and posts which represent the (name removed by moderator)ut of thousands of people really ‘aren’t.

I’m going by the experience of a lifetime of Catholicism. The problem parishioner groups, have been products of anti Vatican II and limiting VII Popes authority. It’s a certain type of bent and it’s been problematic universally for the Church since Vatican II.

 

[Motherwit]

stpurl:

So what you’re saying is because you have a friend or two who is liberal but doesn’t care about ‘dubia’, that’s what most Catholics really ARE, and all the articles and posts which represent the (name removed by moderator)ut of thousands of people really ‘aren’t.

@Motherwit is saying nearly the same thing.

To be honest I think I’m done with this thread. It’s simply liberals gaslighting and slamming traditionalists. So, have at it, and wonder why your Church is losing members.

In post #4 you poked the hornets nest to diss the Pope. It’s a tad hypocritical to march off claiming the same sin of others.

 

[StudentMI]

In post #4 you poked the hornets nest to diss the Pope. It’s a tad hypocritical to march off claiming the same sin of others.

God forbid someone have a differing opinion in your Church. I slammed gaslighting in my original post and slammed it again. It’s far more hypocritical to talk about welcoming sinners and wanting diversity, and then criticizing one group as pharisaical and bigoted for being different.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

In post #4 you poked the hornets nest to diss the Pope. It’s a tad hypocritical to march off claiming the same sin of others.

God forbid someone have a differing opinion in your Church. I slammed gaslighting in my original post and slammed it again. It’s far more hypocritical to talk about welcoming sinners and wanting diversity, and then criticizing one group as pharisaical and bigoted for being different.

It seems to me that when you brought up that hostile topic at the beginning of the thread which was nothing to do with the holy guidance of Pope Francis, that you wanted to incite the same old debate. Now you are saying you are innocent and we are all in the wrong. Talk about the definition of gaslighting.

 

[StudentMI]

Now you are saying you are innocent and we are all in the wrong. Talk about the definition of gaslighting.

Uh huh. Keep wondering why your church is losing members.

 

[stpurl]

Well, my lifetime of experience is completely different. I’ll raise my mother’s (she’s 91), my eleven cousins, my three children and their families, and all but three of the people in the close to 50 parishes that I have attended in my life. All those people, and only three of them ever said anything remotely critical of traditionalists.

Isn’t it surprising? How few people who have, since Vatican 2, thought of people who liked Latin Mass and head coverings and older devotions as being ‘problems’ or being ‘against Vatican 2.” And of all those people I have heard no one, absolutely no one at all, who has ever been less than respectful of ANY of the Popes, less than supportive. Even those who have become concerned over things like the Dubia and the ‘dueling bishops’ have consistently been respectful of ALL people concerned and convinced that any difficulties were not ‘orchestrated’ by some ‘element’ or ‘problem group’ but were most likely the result of lack of communication that was in all probability unintentional and will, in good time, be ‘made good’.

 

[Motherwit]

Even those who have become concerned over things like the Dubia and the ‘dueling bishops’ have consistently been respectful of ALL people concerned and convinced that any difficulties were not ‘orchestrated’ by some ‘element’ or ‘problem group’ but were most likely the result of lack of communication that was in all probability unintentional and will, in good time, be ‘made good’.

I’ve experienced over 60 years, the Church responding to greater threat than ‘lack of communication’ that was ‘unintentional’. Some of those included clusters of Opus Dei, SSPX and Seminaries skating on the edge of faithfulness to the Pope. Then cluster groups who in the 90’s came on mass to parishes to make a point about COTT. It’s been repetitive. Perhaps you’ve never experienced any of those issues in your family neck of the woods, but they are there and they are documented and they continue to cause issues in other parts of the world.

 

[stpurl]

Since my neck of the woods extends to parishes in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh, NYC, all through NY state, Vermont, Maine, Virginia, Arizona, Minnesota, and California, including several university parishes, it’s a fairly extensive ‘neck’ over the last 60 years since my most youthful memory. My mother’s memory goes to most of New Jersey as well as NYC and Buffalo not to mention the ones I list above. My cousins live all over the US from NY to Florida to Texas to Montana and points between.

The thing is, I can recognize that your experiences differ from mine, obviously.

What I question is the overarching ‘take away’.

Surely you have not spent the last 60 years (and the OF has only been around for 50 of them, Pope St. John Paul II’s moto for the last 35, to more or less coincide with the SSPX and Pope Benedict’s Moto since 2007) having to fight the dreadful battles of the nasty trads and their agenda? Where on earth were you? And even if you lived in a major area where the “SSPX” were, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to the ‘regular’ parishes. Which you were more than free to attend.

It boggles the mind that you have spent 60 years, the majority of your life, fighting something that the majority of Catholics have never experienced or thought of but that appears to have affected you so severely that you feel you must present ‘your negative experience with trads’ as something the entire Catholic world needs to fear and prepare to fight as well.

It makes me sad. Heaven knows I’ve had some dreadful experiences with individuals who have been absolutely frothing at the mouth at the idea of a Catholic choosing to attend the dreaded ‘Latin Mass’ and convinced that all ‘trads’ were out to wipe Vatican 2 from the map and force us back to the 13th century, but most Catholics are perfectly reasonable people—trad and ‘progressive’ alike who simply like various devotions and prayers and Masses but have no problem with those who like different ones, and simply would like to accepted and not labeled and stuck in a box to be derided or reviled by fellow Catholics. If I ‘stick up’ for traditional Catholics it’s not because I find ‘progressive’ Catholics objectionable for what they like —perfectly valid Mass and all, it’s because I’m objecting to them mischaracterizing an entire group of people and perpetuating a wrong.

So that means I will ‘stick up’ if somebody calls a person who simply wants to enjoy the OF a heretic or a modernist. They aren’t. But neither is a person who wants to enjoy the EF a ‘Vatican 2 hater’ or a hateful ‘element’ out to destroy the OF.

 

[F_Marturana]

Or labeling a group of commenters a “papal posse” as if they were going to round up a criminal.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Uh huh. Keep wondering why your church is losing members.

Dude, relax. You’re a good poster but your contributions lately have had this real nasty, sarcastic, bitter vibe. . . .

 

[Feanor2]

Again, the point for me is certainly not those people who just prefer Latin Mass and attend a parish under their local ordinary.

The problem is with the internet warriors out there sowing discord in the Church and criticizing the holy Father.

 

[stpurl]

You mean like the internet warrior people who were and are out there agitating for contraception, gay marriage, women priests, and constantly criticizing Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict?

 

[Feanor2]

You mean like the internet warrior people who were and are out there agitating for contraception, gay marriage, women priests, and constantly criticizing Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict?

I believe there are elements on both sides.

I guess that’s Francis’ point.

 

[stpurl]

Yes, there are. However, broadly speaking, there have been in the last 60 years both in numbers and proportion a far greater element of those who have criticized authentic church teachings and the Holy Father by agitating for the relaxation and outright rejection of those teachings (I.e. Catholics for Choice, the push for women priests, acceptance of contraception and even abortion) than there have been those who criticize the relaxation of teachings and the push for the above and who advocate for a stronger adherence to timeless teachings.

I mean face it. Today’s Catholic can still (in some places) say that he or she is ‘personally against’ gay marriage or abortion but ONLY if he or she goes on to line up with the secular authorities and “I certainly will not FORCE MY VIEWS onto others’ etc. The Catholic who says the actual unadulterated, “I believe that gay marriage or abortion is a moral evil” will be thrown under the bus by many modern Catholics who hasten to assert that the above “hateful bigoted rigid Pharisee speech” doesn’t represent THEIR God or THEIR belief.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I want to take this opportunity to say that I thank God every day for the tremendous gift that He has given to His Church and to the world in the person of Pope Francis.

From the moment that he first came on to the loggia of Saint Peter’s, I have been saying thank you.

How much is like the Saint of Assisi.

In Pope Francis, the world has a pastor. A pastor who actually identifies with the poor and the marginalized and the disempowered and the disenfranchised. A pastor he acts like and demonstrates that he well understands a parish priest.

I love the way he chooses to engage his flock and the way he relates to people.

I have been a theology professor for many years…from his encyclicals to his apostolic exhortations to his homilies and other speeches, they are simply a delight.

His initiatives are wonderful.

Indeed, he reminds me most of Good Pope Saint John XXIII. Like the Saint of God, may he be the beginning of another new springtime in the Church.

I will say he has inspired me to go back to using a prayer for my younger days…because of the opposition he confronts:

V. Let us pray for N, our Pope.
R. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the
earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

 

[MNathaniel]

In Pope Francis, the world has a pastor. A pastor who actually identifies with the poor and the marginalized and the disempowered and the disenfranchised. A pastor he acts like and demonstrates that he well understands a parish priest.

May he one day take identity with the poor and marginalized and disempowered and disenfranchised people of China.

And may God comfort Cardinal Zen and the Chinese people in the meantime.

 

[stpurl]

I am grateful for our Pope Emeritus, Benedict.
In him we have a constant father figure whose concerns have always been for our good above all in our eternal lives, while never forgetting our good in our temporal lives.

He has given us in his life a constant fidelity to the Church through his protection of its authentic teachings, his written work which is so clear and unambiguous, embracing all the best parts of modern scholarship to again support and reiterate the Church’s clear and authentic teachings throughout its history, and his especial care for the marginalized and forgotten in the world. Not only that, his example of continued service to all of us as Emeritus through his constant prayer, his humility, and his unquestioning obedience to God’s will rather than his own shows us that it is not only when events in the Church seem to be ‘right and good’ to us, not only when the Church hierarchy seem to be either full of corruption (the priest sex scandals) or full of ‘perfection’ and emulation of what we believe is ‘truly’ God’s desire or example for humanity, but rather when we obey God whether or not we particularly ‘like’ to do so (I.e. whether or not policy, liturgy, etc happen to suit our taste) just because He is God and not whatever we want to make Him by our desires and interpretations, that is paramount.