- The girls have not been behaving. They have publicly and stubbornly clung to the heretical teaching of "conscious evolution." What's that? You may well ask. Have a look here--it's right out of Michael O'Brien's novel Father Elijah. You really can't make this stuff up! Shirley MacLaine, call home, baby!
- It gets better: the girls decided to honor Sister Elizabeth Johnson as their person of the year. You might recall that Johnson got in hot water with U.S. Bishops Conference--that's saying something, these days--for her book Quest for the Living God, in which (among other things) she questions the validity of God's transcendence, His "religiously inadequate" male image, and Christ as the Son of God
- By the way, all of this took place without consulting Archbishop Sartain, the Vatican's appointed Delegate to the LCWR, as was specifically required
What we got here is a failure to communicate. Actually, what we got here is a bunch of ladies who think they can give CDF the Italian salute.
Basta, replies Cardinal Muller: "The decision taken by the LCWR during the ongoing implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment is indeed regrettable and demonstrates clearly the necessity of the Mandate’s provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the Delegate. I must therefore inform you that this provision is to be considered fully in force."
In other words, you want sanctions? You got sanctioned. Archbishop Sartain has now become the de facto administrator of LCWR.
As the girls sit in headquarters spinning Helen Reddy's greatest hits, downing Blue Moon ale while plotting their next move, it's interesting to speculate how this all may play out:
- LCWR realizes the Holy See is serious and toes the line (highly doubtful, given the feminazi nature of its leadership)
- LCWR turns apostate and "migrates" to another church (quite possibly what they've been angling to do all along, and something the anti-Catholic U.S. press would find sensational)
- CDF stages an auto de fe of the LCWR leaders and/or sends the LCWR offenders to a convent under a vow of silence (I can dream, can't I?)
- A comprehensive reorganization that realigns the organization with its historical (and heroic) roots
Look for Michelle Boorstein and Michael Sean Winters to play this up for all it's worth over the next few weeks. And may this mark the beginning of the end of the media's love affair with Pope Francis.
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ReplyDeleteThat last point is a crucial insight because it cuts to the heart of the Pope's own problem. He that liveth by the acclamation of the media's standards will die by them.
ReplyDeleteAt one level, the Vatican's actions here are heartwarming. For all of the Pope's seeming indifferent (and slipshod) handling of orthodoxy, he seems to support - or perhaps just simply acquiesce? - in its enforcement. (Indeed, even if it is acquiescence only, we should take what we can get.) Good for that.
Here's the rub. Having taken a firmly traditionalist stand against the contemporary world's Catholic pin-up girls, the Pope will now leave bewilderment in his wake. He who once seemed so cuddly and lovable will now be seen as being stern and old fashioned. To those trendy Catholics who thought that the Age of Aquarius was coming to the RCC, this will be an intellectual and emotional whipsaw. To those from the outside, who understand the Church little and care about its morals, values and institutions even less, this will be seen as either a betrayal or hypocritical. To traditionalists it will seem somewhat reassuring, but ought it?
Such are the wages of a Pope who speaks the language of "peace, love and dove" divorced from doctrinal teachings, The greatness of Saint Pope John Paul II and Pope emeritus Benedict - particularly the former - was their ability to marry Christ's love to Christ's admonitions to live an upright live. Both dimensions are part of the whole package, so to speak, that Pope Francis seems to have jettisoned either because of intellectual sloth or because he wanted the "fill the pews" on the mistaken assumption that warm bodies were an adequate substitute for devoted souls.
There is much to cheer in this posting and the author is right to be pleased - and one cannot help but laugh at some of his imagery - but it is really plugging the Titanic with drainstop. It cannot obscure the problem that this Pope has created for the Church.
Pope Francis has opened the door to confusion, disillusionment and relativism. Much like canonizing John XXIII and John Paul II at the same time was seen, (especially since the canonization of the former required the waiving of the normal qualifications) as an ideological compromise, by splitting Christ's message into the trendy and the not so trendy the Pope has made every enforcement of orthodoxy seem not so much a principled action as simply just another compromise in a political balancing act. It is on that basis that from here on the teachings of the Church will be seen.