Synodal Report Card – “Lumen gentium (37–38) envisions a mature laity who are confident in living their faith in the world, whereas this current synodality is often obsessed with everyone’s struggles and difficulties, to a degree that swerves deeply into therapeutic territory, as if the laity are too fragile to do anything outside the Church and the clergy are too uncertain to do much of anything inside the Church. ” A Muddled Report for a Messy Synod (What We Need Now)
Demasculinizing the Church – ‘The Church is woman,’ Francis said. ‘And if we do not understand who women are, what the theology of a woman is, we will never understand what the Church is.” Pope Francis: ‘Demasculinize the Church’ (CatholicVote)
Increase in Suicides – “More Americans committed suicide in 2022 than in any other year on record, according to data released by the CDC on Wednesday.” U.S. Suicides Reached Record High Last Year (National Review)
The Old Republic – “Young Nietzscheans should look to Tocqueville as a more politically responsible source for a new politics.” Greatness Without Cruelty (The American Mind)
Sign of God’s Nature – “Is gender an abstracted idea? Is it reducible to biological characteristics? Is it a set of behaviors determined by society? Or is it something more?” C.S. Lewis and the Apocalypse of Gender (Acton Institute)
A Vindictive Action – “Last Saturday, when I read the first report on La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (found in English as the Daily Compass) that Pope Francis planned to strip Cardinal Raymond Burke of his salary and oust him from his Vatican apartment, I did not believe it.” Fool me once… (Catholic Culture)
Cardinal Burke – “The Francis pontificate appears to be entering a delicate phase, fraught with challenges both from within and without.” Why comparisons between Pope’s moves on Strickland, Burke fall flat (Crux)
A Lifetime Process – “Converts are neither perfect nor infallible. But our experiences for good and for ill are gifts that are useful for the Church’s life.” Some Gifts of Being a Convert (The Imaginative Conservative)
Cracking Down – “Vatican observers see a leader more willing to crack down on those seeking to derail his agenda for the Roman Catholic Church.” Pope’s Critics Feel the Sting After His Patience Runs Out (The New York Times)
A False Narrative – “The Death of George Floyd after apprehension by four Minneapolis police officers was the catalyst for protests, riots and a supposed racial reckoning in America.” The George Floyd Murder? New Film Questions Assumptions About 2020 Incident (Academia)
Morality Policy – “Why do conservatives keep falling for cult leaders with double lives?” Michael Voris: Trapped and Exposed (The Skojec File)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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I find the dueling Catholic bloggers phenomenon disappointing. There’s so much anger on the internet and outrage fuels more clicks and revenue.
I know people who became so discouraged by the constant, selective revelations of vice and corruption that they left their Catholic faith.
The world is infested with vice and we all can be tempted by corruption. There’s a time and place for revelations that lead to reform, but I wish folks would concentrate more on building up the Body of Christ than leading some members to despair.
The Church is woman,’ Francis said
No, the Church is not, and anyone who has visited a garden-variety parish over the past fifty years recognizes the idiocy of the call for ‘demasculinization.’
@ Synodal Report Card
By word count, we read that in the synodal Synthesis Report the pliable term “synod” is used 66 times, “experience” 80 times, and “discernment” 38 times.
What is one to “think” about such, what, spiritualism?
THINK? To resist any implicit amnesia, yours truly proposes that synodality now partaketh too much in the Spiritualist/reductionist movements of the past…Yes, partly as reactions to perceived and real clericalism, but mostly as direct threats to the charismatic AND institutional Church. Is there anything new here under the sun?
For more on this perspective, humbly recommended is the fifth comment posted under a CWR December 5 article: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/12/05/i-personally-share-pope-francis-concern-interview-with-sr-anna-mirijam-kaschner/
Although I remain a protestant Christian, I find CWR a very valuable resource. As such I intend to renew my support of this publication again this year. Thank you
Fool me once…
I think we have to look at those, the German Synodal Way Bishops, who are violating all kinds of Church Doctrines and openly rejected papal authority, yet Pope Francis has not Anathematized any of them, or disciplined any of them in any way, ‘because he does not want a schism’.
All we need is for American Bishops to have a ‘Synod’, where they all agree to remain Faithful to Jesus Christ no matter what Pope Francis says, and Pope Francis will have to not discipline any American Bishops, ‘because he does not want a schism’.
Authority, to unify a body of people, only works if authority is binding on all members equally. Pope Francis is a tyrant who only wants Catholics to be subjected to the man-god Pope Francis, rather than obedience to the teachings and Commandments of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
@ Demasculinizing the Church
There! He said it. I knew it all along. Now let’s look at this seriously. We know the Church is referenced as the Bride of Christ. Analogous to love between man and woman. His mother Mary is also Mother of the Church. Her child is the God Man Christ. The Mystical Body is Christ. And if ever there was a man’s man it’s Jesus of Nazareth.
Feminization is the ploy here, not womanhood, the sacred relation of woman in the Church as Mother of God. Although there is that dimension within the Church, as a body that nourishes, provides warmth, loves as only a mother can. Nonetheless the Church is a singular Person attached to the Trinity. It’s the masculine identity of the provider, the bearer of the waters of life. It’s the man who takes to the field, wherever, however demanding, however dangerous. It’s Christ who draws us into himself. Whatever His Holiness’ thoughts may be, feminization of the male image of Christ is effeminization. The tragic moral illness sweeping mankind.
@ Cardinal Burke
Chris Altieri makes an excellent argument why the Bishop Strickland removal and Cardinal Burke’s questionable eviction are not similar in comparison. Strickland’s ad hominem public criticisms provoked papal correction, whereas Burke’s were mostly [he did sharply criticize Pope Francis in interviews] in accord with protocol, legal questions requesting response.
While Altieri’s assessment may be well conceded, Altieri, unlike Strickland’s perceived reprehensible actions, doesn’t at all find justice in Burke’s case; both men found it necessary to call out Pope Francis. For whatever rationale Bishop Strickland chose to pursue the issue as he did he seemed compelled in conscience to go down in flames in order to make the message heard resoundingly. As indeed he did.
The Pontiff Francis need not voice his preference for “de-masculinizing the Church.”
His intentions in that regard are clear, and made explicit by the psychologically transgendered “men” he has selected to inhabit his circle.
When I think of Jesus of Nazareth, the good shepherd, who laid down his life to save us from falsehood, I think of good shepherds, the ones that the Pontiff Francis can’t stand, and refuses to acknowledge, real men, like Cardinal Zen and Cardinal Mueller and Cardinal Burke.
As to the Pontiff Francis and his lifetime commitment to “de-masculinization,” he might content himself by pondering his personal attainment of that objective. (His campaign managers “Mr.” McCarrick and the late “Eminence” Danneels would certainly commend his success in that regard.)
Yes Chris, Cardinals Zen and Gerhard Müller belong in the comparatively small list of brave prelates calling Pope Francis to task on his policy of effeminization [and worse] of the Church.
Thanks Fr. M.
God bless you this Advent season, and thank you for persevering as a good shepherd.
Why do some bishops give the lead for the Morality Policy to people like Dr. Fauci as the way for them to shepherd their flocks?
Just saying it out loud reveals how complex it is. Worse, now that the facts have come to light, they do not correct what they have done nor even try to reorient things for the future nor be honest and (truly) candid at least.
https://catholicvote.org/fauci-says-practicing-catholicism-not-a-thing-i-need-to-do/