I have waited to comment on this for a few days to let the facts shake out. It seems that they have shaken out to the maximum degree that the Pope will allow.
Is it true that we cannot know for sure what the Pope said on the phone call? Yup, that is true.
Does that mean there is nothing to worry about? Well, let’s see.
So let’s stick with what we do know and see if there is anything to worry about.
We know that the phone call took place and the topic was divorce/remarriage and communion since that is the topic of the letter that prompted the call.
We know what the woman alleges that the Pope said, namely that it is OK for her to return to Communion.
We know that as a result, many many people now think, rightly or wrongly, that the Pope has signaled that it is legitimate for the divorced and remarried to return to communion.
We know that the Holy See knows this and we know that the Holy See refuses to comment, to confirm or deny, the context of the situation thus leaving in place suppositions of many as a result of the call.
We know that the Holy See has done nothing to re-iterate in anyway the Church’s doctrine on this matter in the wake of the scandal caused by the reporting on the call.
We know that at the invitation of the Pope, Cardinal Kasper proposed just such a solution to the consistory.
We know the Pope effusively praised Cardinal Kasper for his proposals.
Is this sufficient to form an opinion or to be a source of worry for a faithful Catholic?
You decide.
April 27, 2014 at 3:34 am
I understood what you mean. At least those Renaissance playboys didn't undermine the Faith.
April 28, 2014 at 1:40 am
First of all I don't think of Paul as a weak pope. He could see both sides of an issue but John thought highly of him. His problem was his closest advisors would not listen to him and outright ignored his appeals for his own Year of Faith. I agree with Lori, Its always easy to blame Paul for everything that happened. The New Mass Yes. As far as being a homosexual he was on record about that and flatly denied he was one. I think we need to be very careful about how we talk about pope's period. As far as the worst there is Blessed Pius IX who was clearly anti Jewish and proved it by talking a Jewish Boy from his parents and raising him a Catholic. He should IMHO not been beatified because of this action.
April 28, 2014 at 6:43 pm
Vatican II was not entirely infallible because it "ha evitato di pronunciare in modo straordinario dogmi dotati della nota di infallibilità [avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary way (newly defined) dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility]" (Paul VI audience, 12 January 1966)
and "In view of conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the
present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as
binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so"
(Council's General Secretary, 16 November 1964), which it never did for
its doctrinal novelties.
April 28, 2014 at 6:49 pm
The pre-/post- Vatican II statistics are abysmal: http://bit.ly/AsnhT6
April 28, 2014 at 6:50 pm
Also, Paul VI himself said the Church was self-destructing.
April 28, 2014 at 6:51 pm
They don't canonize Vatican II because they realize it contradicts the pre-Vatican II magisterium. Also, Modernists, philosophically agnostic, abhor certainty and thrive on confusion.
April 28, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Not commenting on Pope Paul VI’s personal holiness (as I really don’t know) I would say the one decision of his which, if it doesn’t mark him as possibly the worst Pope (not the worst man, but the worst Pope) in the history of the Church was his decision to release the Novus Ordo Missae on the entire Catholic world and de facto suppress the traditional Latin Mass.
This one stroke helped obliterate Catholic identity in her liturgy, art, architecture, music and catechesis (as liturgy is catechetical as well). And why?
“The distinguished writer Jean Guitton [who was a close friend of Pope Paul VI], when interviewed on the radio [10] about the biography of Pope Paul VI by Yves Chiron, stated that the Pope had done all in his power to bring the Catholic Mass into conformity with the Protestant meal theory, and after twice repeating the allegation, concluded as follows:
‘Paul VI had an ecumenical intention of extinguishing, or at least correcting or diluting, all that was too ‘Catholic’ in the traditional sense of the term in the Mass, and, I repeat, of bringing the Catholic Mass into conformity with the Mass of Calvin.’
Lumière 101/ Radio Courtoisie Sunday 19th Dec. 1993.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2011/11/roman-rite-old-and-new-vi-new-mass-and.html
April 28, 2014 at 9:13 pm
On which grounds can you claim that Fr Villa's accusations are not credible? They are all well documented. The paedophile priests scandals began to burst out during Paul VI's pontificate. Odd coincidence, isn't it? A notorious homosexual like Card Bernardin was made archbp of Chicago by Paul VI.
Fr Villa never was suspended or forbidden because he had mission letters of the Pope Pius XII.
April 28, 2014 at 9:24 pm
It is not about anybody's salvation, it is about a modernist Pope. It is easy to acknowledge he is a modernist by his declarations and statements. Anyways, though Saint Pius X has condemned the modernism in harsh words, the modernism looks to no longer be an heresy since Pope Paul VI cancelled the "anti-modernist oath" that was to be sworn by the priests.
Then let's go with modernism, that's a nice thing and it pleases everybody, alleluia !
April 28, 2014 at 9:35 pm
Why ridiculous? There were many dark sides in Paul VI's past. If there was stil the Devil's advocate job during the canonizations trials, certainly he wouldn't be beatified, not speaking canonized.
Now they want the council VAT II to be made a super dogma, therefore they need mandatorily conciliar popes canonized, Paul VI included.
April 28, 2014 at 9:51 pm
About half of Rome's people actually knew that Paul VI had a lover and who he was (a movie actor). Do you think one second that the Pope would acknowledge "yes I am a homosexual"?
We get the popes we deserve. The XXth century popes are not better than their predecessors, they are ordinary men.
Regarding Pius IX, one must understand him in the light of the times when he was pope. "No salvation outside the true Church of Christ" (still a dogma and forever). Therefore he deemed that converting a jew child was bringing one more soul to Christ. In the post conciliar times this has become: "Everybody is saved whichever is one's religion, atheists included, then: Why to worry?
April 28, 2014 at 10:17 pm
My comment was poorly phrased. I agree with you. What I think is patently ridiculous is the very idea of canonizing this man.
April 29, 2014 at 3:17 am
As far as I can tell, Fr. Villa's "documentation" is composed of articles written by other conspiracy theorists as crazy as he is. I saw nothing credible in the book.
And Cardinal Bernardin a "notorious homosexual" Where is your evidence for that? He was accused of sexual abuse back in the 1990's by a mixed-up young man — who later retracted the accusation, admitting it had been planted in him by his therapist. OK, so where is the eyewitness evidence?
Mere correlation in time is proof of nothing. If a lot of abuse happened in the 60's and 70's it was a result of the mentality and morals of the times, which Pope Paul fought against.
Also, will you stand behind Villa's assertion that because Pope Paul (supposedly) had a mother who was Jesus, it is therefore obvious he was an evil enemy of the Church? Do you support this idea?
Quit stuffing your head with nonsense?
April 29, 2014 at 3:26 am
As I understand the story, the Jewish boy in question converted voluntarily because of the witness of a Catholic servant girl in his home. I believe she also baptized him. Not necessarily wise on her part, because there was little chance he would be raised Catholic. But it was done. And his parents did refuse to allow him to be raised Catholic. This is why Pope Pius did as he did, and had him taken from the home so he could follow his own wishes. The boy eventually became a priest and Pope Pius IX was quite close to him.
There is a case for both sides in this; taking a child from his parents is extreme, in a sense, and if his faith was strong, it would have remained so until he was grown and could decide for himself. I don't know many of the details of this, but perhaps there was something in the situation that led him to it. At any rate, there is no motivation in this to call him an anti-semite.
April 29, 2014 at 9:01 pm
Archbishop Lefebvre will be canonized one day as Saint Marcel the Great, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor.
April 29, 2014 at 9:10 pm
Almost
sixty years ago, “Padre Pio first met Father Luigi Villa, whom he
entreated to devote his entire life to fight Ecclesiastical Freemasonry.
Padre Pio told Father Villa that Our Lord had designs upon him and had
chosen him to be educated and trained to fight Freemasonry within the
Church. The Saint spelled out this task in three meetings with Father
Villa, which took place in the last fifteen years of life of Padre Pio.
At the close of the second meeting [second half of 1963], Padre Pio
embraced Father Villa three times, saying to him: ‘Be brave, now…for the
Church has already been invaded by Freemasonry!’ and then stated:
‘Freemasonry has already made it into the loafers (shoes) of the Pope!’
At the time, the reigning Pope was Paul VI.
Pope Paul VI speaking at the UN
“The
mission entrusted to Father Luigi Villa by Padre Pio to fight
Freemasonry within the Catholic Church was approved by Pope Pius XII who
gave a Papal Mandate for his work. Pope Pius XII’s Secretary of State,
Cardinal Tardini, gave Father Villa three Cardinals to work with and to
act as his own personal ‘guardian angels’:
April 29, 2014 at 9:41 pm
thanks.
April 29, 2014 at 10:40 pm
Don't hold your breath.
April 30, 2014 at 7:58 pm
I don't need to hold my breath. Faith and Truth are enough for me. The Truth will bring about his inevitable canonization in time(it most likely will not be in our lifetimes). He will be in good company as St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher and St. Joan of Arc took centuries to be canonized. People of tradition do not need to change the rules to suit our agendas such as modernists and neo-cons do to push their agenda. You realize, I hope, that by making the canonization process little more than a prom queen election that you do great harm to the Church?
May 1, 2014 at 12:15 am
I have never said the canonization process is a prom queen election. However, the saints aren't just those who are in heaven – and I certainly hope Lefebvre is there. In the Church, people are canonized because of their heroic virtue and fidelity to the faith as an example for all Christians. It's just not very likely that the Church will be canonizing someone who defied the Magisterium of the Church, flirted with schism and breaking the unity of the body of Christ (however much he may have been in good faith), and died excommunicate without seeking reconciliation. It might be heroic fidelity to an ideal, but that ideal is not the Catholic faith, but one's private version of it. You are pinning your hopes on the Church of the Council and afterwards just going away and leaving things the way they were a hundred years ago. It's not going to happen. It can't. That is what I meant.