Tag: Pope Francis
Nothing to See Here
Benedict wants to blame the 1960s for the sex abuse problem. He doesn’t address how this explains the sex abuse which began decades earlier and was enabled by the widespread corruption and perversion already entrenched in the episcopate before the 60s. The man who abandoned his post now praises the work of Francis and wants the faithful to look the other way.
One friend on Facebook tried to explain Benedict’s actions as a criticism of Francis, although Benedict closes the essay with this gem:
At the end of my reflections I would like to thank Pope Francis for everything he does to show us, again and again, the light of God, which has not disappeared, even today. Thank you, Holy Father
Another friend observed that Benedict was subtly contradicting the Francis approach to things.
However, I’m of the mind that Ratzinger was a big part of the problem. He was a periti at the council, he was a major influence on the new theology, he was the right hand man to JP2 for all those years, who presided over the greatest collapse in the Church since the Arian crisis, and when it was his own time to make the tough decisions as Pope, he quit. (All this having been said, I don’t deny the good he did with SP and the lifting of the unjust excommunications).
If he’s having a crisis of conscience, it doesn’t indicate that he truly understands the nature of the problem (which is not pedophilia). If … Read the rest
When the Shepherds Become Wolves
Bishops and priests who succumb to the temptations of money and the vanity of careerism turn into wolves “who devour the flesh of their own sheep”. Mincing no words to stigmatize the conduct of anyone who, the Pope said, citing St Augustine, “takes the flesh of the sheep to eat it, exploit it or trade in it, and who is attached to money, becomes a miser and frequently also a simonist”. Or else he makes use of the wool for his own vanity, in order to boast. Pope Francis, May 2013
How to Be Miserable, Forever
I have known many envious people in my life, and never found their company pleasurable. While hatred can be satisfying for a 
brief time, even entertaining when its excess boils over into comical antics, envy burns somewhat more discreetly but far more insidiously. While hatred often reveals itself in violent and stunning flashes, envy eats away predictably, consistently, eternally and often serves to cover up it’s owner’s shame because the emotions it brings forth from that well of victimization which it has carved out serve to block whatever remaining conscience the owner has remaining, leaving them in a perpetual state of self-inflicted pain and pity.
This life we live here, satiated in every physical way and yet so desperately hungry in the ways that matter, serves as a frequent exhibition of this pitiful vice. I am reminded of it often as I hear petty criticisms spew forth from the mouths of those who, having been failures in whatever pursuit they began, find pleasure only in lamenting others. No matter how far they have fallen, they always find something to resent in another, usually, more quietly suffering individual. I am not immune from it, in fact, I am the worst of them, because having been granted by God greater fortune than most, I still find the time to wonder, indeed, seethe, why it is that I cannot compose prose like Hemingway, or music like Mozart or thoughts like Aristotle, although I would not desire any of their lives. I am merely … Read the rest
I have known many envious people in my life, and never found their company pleasurable. While hatred can be satisfying for a brief time, even entertaining when its excess boils over into comical antics, envy burns somewhat more discreetly but far more insidiously. While hatred often reveals itself in violent and stunning flashes, envy eats away predictably, consistently, eternally and often serves to cover up it’s owner’s shame because the emotions it brings forth from that well of victimization which it has carved out serve to block whatever remaining conscience the owner has remaining, leaving them in a perpetual state of self-inflicted pain and pity.
This life we live here, satiated in every physical way and yet so desperately hungry in the ways that matter, serves as a frequent exhibition of this pitiful vice. I am reminded of it often as I hear petty criticisms spew forth from the mouths of those who, having been failures in whatever pursuit they began, find pleasure only in lamenting others. No matter how far they have fallen, they always find something to resent in another, usually, more quietly suffering individual. I am not immune from it, in fact, I am the worst of them, because having been granted by God greater fortune than most, I still find the time to wonder, indeed, seethe, why it is that I cannot compose prose like Hemingway, or music like Mozart or thoughts like Aristotle, although I would not desire any of their lives. I am merely … Read the rest