Pope Francis says conservative critics have a ‘suicidal attitude’

Pope Francis in an interview with 60 Minutes' Norah O'Donnell, which aired on May 19th. (Credit: CBS News/Adam Verdugo)

CNA Staff, May 16, 2024 / 16:58 pm (CNA).

In an interview with “60 Minutes” airing this Sunday, Pope Francis takes aim at his “conservative critics” in the United States, reportedly saying a conservative is someone who “clings to something and does not want to see beyond that.”

“It is a suicidal attitude,” the pope said as reported by “60 Minutes,” which released a brief clip of the upcoming interview conducted by CBS’ Nora O’Donnell.

“Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”

Francis has occasionally addressed criticism leveled against him during his more than 10 years as pontiff, saying in August 2023 that the U.S. Catholic Church is characterized by “a very strong reactionary attitude.” He has taken actions recently to limit the influence of some of his most prominent clerical critics in the U.S., reportedly taking some Vatican privileges from Cardinal Raymond Burke and removing Bishop Joseph Strickland, a frequent online critic of the pope, from his post as bishop of Tyler, Texas.

According to CBS, the pope in the recent interview “spoke candidly with O’Donnell about the wars in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, and the migration crises around the world and on the U.S. southern border.”

“The wide-ranging conversation also touches upon the Church’s handling of its own sexual abuse scandals; Francis’ deep commitment to inclusiveness within the Church; the backlash against his papacy from certain corners of U.S. Catholicism; and an exploration of his thinking on surrogate parenthood,” the network says, adding that the interview marks “the first time a pope has given an in-depth, one-on-one interview to a U.S. broadcast network.”

The full interview, conducted April 24, will air as part of “60 Minutes” on May 19 from 7-8 p.m. ET on CBS and will be available on Paramount+. More of the interview will air in an hourlong prime-time special on Monday, May 20, at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.

The interview comes ahead of the first-ever World Children’s Day, May 25–26, a new initiative by Pope Francis sponsored by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education in collaboration with the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio, the Auxilium Cooperative, and the Italian Football Federation. The Vatican is expecting children from more than 100 countries to travel to Rome for the weekend event with the pope.


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112 Comments

  1. Wait!

    What are people called who make blanket judgments about entire groups of people?

    Oh, right! Bigots!

    But who am I to judge?

    LOLOL!

    • From the Second letter of the Apostle, John:
      Anyone who is so “progressive” that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God, while anyone who remains rooted in the teaching possesses both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you who does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house; do not even greet him, for whoever greets him shares in the evil he does.

  2. Bergoglio doesn’t make arguments.

    He characterizes. Spews insults. Casts aspersions.

    Not a good look for a pope.

    • This is typical straw man argument that is so unfortunately typical of Pope Francis. Rather than engage in a reasoned response to issues that are raised by his critics, he simply attributes to them absurd motives and dismisses them.

  3. Although I am an ordinary Catholic layperson who is critical of Pope Francis’ immoral goals for the Catholic Church, I have been name-called by him as an ideologue and as someone with a suicidal attitude! (Yeah, just like St. Paul and other writers of both the Old and New Testaments.) Well comments like that can only come from evil because it stirs the temptation to anger in the heart and soul. This pope, this human, who is shallow, petty, worldly, and arrogant in his position as Peter, is not a good shepherd but a spiritual thief that we need to be watchful of. This pope is not the Catholic Church, only a failed leader of Christ’s Catholic Church.

      • In other words, dear James Connor, according to your criterion: “No one should draw our attention to glaring papal malfeasances because we are all less than perfect!”

        No need for investigative journalism, committees of enquiry – in fact no need for democracy where the opposition try to keep the government honest by pointing to bad decisions and corruption. In fact, no need even for a judicial system, for the foulest murderer is simply an imperfect person, like the judge & jury!

        That doesn’t sound like the New Testament to me. More like devilish anarchy . . .

        Ever in the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty

      • James Connor: I have sinned. But I have never taken a sacred responsibility and stood before the world and proclaimed that sins don’t count if “in my concrete circumstances this is all God is asking of me at this time.” And I never said of God that He can be confused as well and change His mind about right and wrong as He learns from His creation through history. I was never so stupid as to not consider the implications of how such stupidity would lead confused people astray into committing greater and greater wrongs in their lives producing more and more victims of sin. I was never that cold-blooded.

    • Discouragement is the devil’s favored attack. Let us be mindful of that during this profoundly discouraging administration of Christ’s Church. We are blessed with the perennial Magisterium, even if the living Magisterium finds itself in service to secular materialism, or confused, or tongue-tied out of fear.
      Christ’s is the victory. He will draw enormous good out of this ecclesial Dark Night.

      • James, it is important to note:

        We are blessed with the perennial Magisterium, even if the living Magisterium finds itself in service to secular materialism, or confused, or tongue-tied out of fear.”

        The “living Magisterium”, can only be the “perennial Magisterium”. The Office Of The MUNUS is “forever”.

        We can know through both Faith and reason, that a “living” Magisterium”, that was not part of the “perennial Magisterium”, would Ipso facto be a rupture of the perennial magisterium, and in essence be a false magisterium.

        The Ministerial Office of The Papacy cannot serve in opposition to The Office Of The MUNUS, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.

        “For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles. ”

        • I believe we are on the same page. It is diagnostic of our epoch that we need speak of a living Magisterium and a perennial Magisterium. Those commissioned to teach the truths of the Faith should be so united to those truths that there be no need to differentiate between what are simple the two sides of the same coin. But the crucible of our moment in history is that the episcopate, including the papacy, has been seduced by a “seat of the pants theological academy.” Theological reflection is an occupation of the knees. There is a sort of skepticism among those who should be zealously guarding the Magisterium. They excuse this perspective as academic freedom, as a heroic enterprise to reconcile secular materialism with the faith, or even as a sort of “Dark Night.”
          It is a self deceit.
          Does the lover spend his existence in objectivizing the loved one?
          All of the nonsense we are presently shouldering is the result of a neurotic self-absorption which results in a core nihilism. We have been spinning our wheels for at least sixty years, getting nowhere or worse, and the Kingdom of God is evaporating.
          In a comical note, the entire Church has become a sort of “nuns on the bus” sitcom, and those who could terminate the sacrilege have been marginalized, hung out to dry, canceled, deprived of their just wage, and pilloried, while the reprobates are ensconced on their stools.

  4. The original “Blame-America-First” Pope.

    I wonder if he says, “It’s Trump’s fault” in the interview.

    Conservative Catholics are the Pope’s favorite pinàta.

  5. Standing for Catholic Truth and following Jesus Christ IS a suicidal attitude.

    Rhe alternative is to be become a fish-faced Marxist ideologist in bed with the Prince of this World.

  6. “Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”

    You mean like a Progressive/Marxist box, Francis, or is that somehow different 🙄?

  7. In the 4th century those who did not “have a suicidal tendancy” surrendered their scriptures during Diocletian’s persecution.

    They were called “traditores”.

    Bergoglioism has surrendered the sacred scriptures on the hypocritical altar of rainbow activism – the pope himself repudiating St Paul.

    Bergoglioism is for the traditores.

  8. I’m not an American but am a close observer of the chaos stirred-up within The Church by the ruthless politicking of the current incumbent of The Chair of St Peter.

    By slandering US Catholics so shamelessly Pope Francis hopes to subvert the clear-eyed, apostolic criticisms raised among American Catholics (and many others – read the British Catholics’ disgust over Pope Francis’ blunders in ‘The Catholic Herald’, for example).

    Across the world Catholics are horrified by PF’s protection of sexually exploitive clerics – exacerbated by his hypocritical claims to be a defended of the vulnerable. We absolutely hate his left-wing sell-out of our Chinese Catholic brothers & sisters to the ruthless dictatorship of Xi Jin Ping.

    Faithful Catholics everywhere are deeply scandalized by Pope Francis giving Holy Communion to eminent Americans who are public advocates of infanticide. Shocked by his embrace of pagan idols, his fraternizing with pornographers, and his advocacy for homosexual blessing within The Church.

    Dear Pope Francis: no sensible person will be taken-in by your childish rage against The Church in America. We all see through the rhetoric that aims to stir up hatred against those who fearlessly speak the truth concerning your malfeasances. Your pr attempt to ‘shoot the messenger’ fails totally.

    American Catholics are NOT: suicidally living in a dogmatic box, clinging to something and refusing to see beyond, or those with a strong reactionary attitude.

    Such attempts to besmirch & malign US Catholics will never succeed in obscuring the justified criticisms by American & other faithful Catholics of your disastrous anti-Apostolic reign.

    Australians have a name for what you have said: it refers to the effluvia of cattle.

    Always in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

    • Marty;

      Your use of the word ‘effluvia’ is appreciated – in cases as absurd as this a light touch is best.

      One of my sisters is buried among her aboriginal friends in Wilcannia, NSW.

  9. According to the current occupier of Peter’s Chair, a conservative is someone who “clings to something and doesn’t want to see beyond that.” Didn’t someone once say, “Hold fast [i.e.cling] to the traditions you have heard either by word or by letter”? If turnabout is fair play, perhaps we could define a liberal as someone who clings to something — usually what he considers a utopian ideal — and *can’t* see beyond it; thus, when the promised workers’ paradise becomes a barbed-wire gulag, the liberal assures us, like the lady in “Prufrock,” “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it at all.”

  10. This is the sort of locution–not merely non-pastoral but decidedly mean-spirited–that motivated some of us a long time ago to tune this prelate out.

  11. Breaking News:

    The Pontiff-of-all-Unity-Mercy-and-Humility indulges his compulsion to express his contempt for those who don’t kowtow to his “Rupnik-Cult-Ideology.”

    Maybe Norah O will win a Pulitzer?

  12. “The idiom “speak out of both sides of one’s mouth” means to be inconsistent in what one says about the same subject or matter, depending on the audience or the circumstance.”

  13. And as a coda:

    All can appreciate the Pontiff’s contribution to irony in simultaneously protecting and promoting sex abusers, sodomy and idolatry, while declaring that those not following “his way forward” are “suicidal.”

    • Supposedly “Conservative” and “Traditionalist” mean the same thing. I find interesting the choice of words here.

      Also, with PF sitting across from her, did Norah O’Donnell just “touch on” the sexual abuse crisis?

      Well what can one say, “Move on nothing to see here!”

    • Yes, indeed. P. Francis would surely hold St. Ignatius of Antioch in contempt and, had he been present in Rome at the time of that martyr’s death in the 2nd century, might have cheered the lions on: ‘Go lions, go. Another traditionalist bishop bites the dust!’
      Folks like him, who have really nothing useful, helpful, or insightful to offer, would do well just to stay in his room and twiddle his thumbs.

      • That’s good; but maybe even better, dear Thomas H Hubert:
        “Stay in his room, fasting & praying, until he has a genuine encounter with The Living Jesus Christ (who is always with us and available for any humble enough to seek Him with all their heart).
        Followed by prostration (at least in spirit), streams of tears, and a string of apologies and repentances.
        Mercifully saved from his future exclusion, the Pope would be flooded with the joy of the LORD and vow to speedily correct all the many wickedness he has oversighted; promising henceforth to bear faithful servant witness to Jesus Christ of The New Testament and an encouraging friend to all true Catholics who love & obey God’s commands.”

        Brothers & Sister in Christ – can we all pray for the conversion of Pope Francis.

        • Yes, Dr. Rice, that would be a better approach. I was lacking some charity at the time I wrote that (a lot of it, truth to tell). Mea culpa . . . And I should go and do the same (fast, pray, repent).

  14. Yet again it appears Pope Bergoglio has a bone to pick not only with faithful Catholics, but with the United States as well. His synodal model of ecclesial existence appears insufficient to address this predicament, though not so subtle invectives do seem to do the trick for him, as well as withdrawal of priestly faculties, episcopal authority and the individually targeted financial assault. In a pinch which challenges his open-classroom ecclesiology he goes barbed, abandoning the lauded “dialogue” for the sort of an exchange modeled between inadequate authority and the victims of a disaster which could have been avoided.
    The Holy Father might wish to digest the reality of ecclesial life since 1965. The numbers bespeak a catastrophe for individual souls as well as for the corporate Church. But perhaps he relishes the actuality? Was the consequence of the last sixty years the intended result all along, and Pope Bergoglio’s ambition is to simply tie the ribbon around the Jack-in-the-Box?

      • When I first heard his chosen name as Pope was to be Francis it was immediately apparent it announced an agenda based on a fiction rather than any authentic theological/ecclesiological focus. That intuition has proved true. At this moment
        is by far best to follow the Italian custom to refer to the pope by his family name…Pope Wojtyla, Pope Ratzinger were never thought to be disrespectful back in the day.
        St. Francis of Assisi, the Seraphic Father, burned with love for Almighty God, our Crucified Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. St. Francis’ horror for sin found him throwing himself into beds of thorn in an effort to cool sinful desire. His Gospel based ascetic impulse stands in stark contrast to the license provided by contemporary theological perspectives presently tolerated, encouraged and held in favor.
        St. Francis was regarded the image of the Crucified Christ in his time — the bird bath imagery has no place in reality but to provide false consolations. St. Francis would find our present condition quite alarming and alien. Our sole consolation is to be Jesus Christ Crucified, not any confection from an academic ecumenical enterprise in service to secular materialism.

        • Bergoglio is unworthy of the name Francis. It is for him a mask. He appeals to the fictional bird bath character, not the man who walked with the Crucified.

          • I addressed Connor, but I’m glad you answered. I never associated Francis the pope with the saint of Assisi; one had the stigmata of Christ, the other has that of himself. Francis the pope resembles the birdbath Francis quite well.

            The birdbath Francis is a figure, stiff, rigid, unmovable, unmoving, usually very dirty, more artifact than real. Surrounded by creatures who scratch dirt for sustenance, such a figure would smell bad too.

  15. Hmm…Bergoglio goes on a mainstream media TV network (starring far-leftist Nora O’Donnell) for an interview in an election year just AFTER a poll revealing that Biden is 10 points behind Trump among American Catholics. And all in order to bash “conservative” Catholics! Gosh, I wonder what’s up with that! Don’t let this “far-ranging” interview with various topics fool you! He’s not there to talk about the war in Ukraine or other red-herring topics. His main message is that we faithful American Catholics are obviously too “rigid”, and we better vote the way he wants us to or else! Rome has spoken!

    • Even if i intended not to vote for Trump, knowing that the Pope is campaining for abortion-lobing Biden, would give me justification for voting for Trump just to stick it to Pontiff Bergoglio.

      • Oh yeah, vote for your precious porn king Trump. Why don’t you read Galatians 5-22,23 deacon? Can you point to one fruit of the Spirit that Trump possesses? No not one. And before attacking Pope Francis remove the splinter in your own eye.

        • Ed,
          When you have the log taken from your eye, you’ll see the type of fruit Francis offers. Francis’ fruit is rotten, having taken ‘life’ from the venom in its vine.

          Trump is running for US president, not God’s Vicar on earth.

        • Porn is what pornography does. Any act, including any sexual act, that denies the inherent Dignity of the human person and is thus physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually harmful, is not an act of Love. Love, which is rightly ordered to the inherent Dignity of the human person, who s first and foremost a beloved son or daughter, is devoid of every form of lust.

          Let no one deceive you, to accommodate the equality of sexual acts and sexual relationships, is to accommodate and celebrate lust. To claim that by denying the equality of sexual acts and sexual relationships one engages in unjust discrimination is a lie from the start. Authentic Love requires the discrimination between acts that respect the inherent Dignity of the human person as a beloved son or daughter, and acts that deny our inherent Dignity.

          Man is not an end in himself, nor s man a means to an end; man was Created For Communion with God, Who Willed us worthy of Redemption.

          The Sacrifice Of The Cross, The Sacrament Most Holy, Is The Sacrifice Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity; “For God so Loved us that He Sent His Only Son…”
          At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”
“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
          “Behold your Mother.” – Christ On The Cross
          “Penance, Penance, Penance.”

        • I haven’t heard of any people out to canonize Trump or declare him a living Saint. Mostly, people who are pro-Trump think he’s better than the traitor to Catholicism, Joe Biden. Better than a man who wants as many people who wish it to have the means to have their child murdered at 9 months’ gestation, is a pretty low bar. The third alternative being a man who is highly unlikely to be elected, and who also publicly stated that he was for abortion being legal through all 9 months, including at the state level, and then flip-flopped. Not very trustworthy, also not setting a high standard.

  16. Oh, my! I’m not sure this interview was a good idea. I don’t think it’s ever appropriate to air “internal laundry” in public, especially in the U.S. I fear that enemies of the Church, as well as those who are “lukewarm,” will jubilantly grab hold of the damp undergarments and run waving them in the streets as they shout, “Victory is ours!”

    • We can only hope his buffoonery is sufficiently exposed that many more Catholics start facing the reality of this pontifical crisis.

  17. Why has Francis not returned to Argentina? Why does he protect Marco Ruptnik who was removed from the Jesuits, yet allows him to keep his place in Rome? Why did Francis protect Cardinal McCarrick and others like him? Many, many questions!

  18. Typical leftist. Attack the person or the group when reason is not on your side. Standing tall here as a religious and political “deplorable.”

  19. Guys, speaking about suicidal:

    ‘ The Ukrainian president also responded to a question about whether the US is to blame for what is happening in Kharkiv now.

    It is the fault of the whole world. They gave Putin the opportunity to carry out the occupation. But now the world can help,” Zelensky replied.

    According to him, all Kyiv needs is two Patriot systems.

    “Russia will not be able to occupy Kharkiv if we have them,” Zelensky said. ‘

    NEWS . AM
    Zelensky: The situation is very serious. We cannot afford to lose Kharkiv
    18:10 – 16.05.2024
    Region:World News, Russia
    Theme: Politics
    https://news.am/eng/news/823710.html#google_vignette

  20. I suppose the Pontiff is miffed because the big US donors supporting the McCarrick-run “Papal Fund” refused to fork over the money when the Pontiff “suggested” they break the fund governing riles out of deference to him. Who do those people think they are refusing to submit to “his supreme authority?”

  21. There is a silver lining to the anti-American nonsense that Pope Francis indulges in in this programme. Viewers/listeners interested in a fuller, more honest picture of the American Catholic Church may be motivated to pick up a copy of the other Francis’s book, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.

  22. Dear Pope Francis – Our dogmatic box has plenty of air holes in it to exhale your venomous words and to breathe in the Holy Spirit. Those “conservatives” are your stewards of the Church and they intend on living on.

  23. The lack of basic Christian charity in so much of what Pope Francis says and does is astonishing and disappointing. What kind of example is this for us ordinary Catholics?

  24. Sad and bad but true. Pope Francis and right wing conservative Catholics have opposing fundamental worldviews, beliefs, and assumptions about the Church and of how to live out the Catholic faith. On the plane of Ecclesiology, or the theological vision of the Church’s nature and mission, Pope Francis has frequently articulated his vision of the Church as a “Field Hospital.” Conservative Catholics view the Church as a “Fortress” or a “Country Club.” In the Field Hospital, living out Christ’s healing mercy of the inclusive welcoming of all, especially the lost, the least, and the last, is of foremost value in engaging with the world and in the evangelization of bringing all peoples to Christ and His Church. The bottom line of this ecclesiology is the Vatican II vision of the Church as the pilgrim people of God journeying with and under the Peter in living out the Catholic faith guided by scripture and tradition as interpreted and taught by the living Magisterium. In contrast the Fortress Church adheres rigidly to dead, fixed, unchanging doctrinal and liturgical tenets erroneously equated as tradition set as defense walls against what it perceives as a fallen and broken world it tries to escape from and to defend the Church against. As a an exclusive Country Club, this contra-Vatican II churchview in action employs a hierarchy of non-negotiable standards that function as a mechanism of judgmental discrimination with which to assess all Catholics including and especially (for conservative Catholics) Pope Francis. The good news is only a tiny but loud minority of Catholics in the U.S. are right wing conservatives. That’s well and true.

    • Why are you recycling these ridiculous posts? Do you have anything original to contribute here beyond these tired bigotries? The church is not a fortress, a country club, or a field hospital. Francis is a morally and spiritually compromised pope, and exposing his fraudulent ministry is appropriate and necessary at this point.

      • Through the lens of Ethical Encounter Theology, these all come out of the divine cosmic still at the same place: P. Francis, C. Fernandez, C. McCarrick, James Martin, Marco Rupnik, Marciel Marcial, and their whole ‘Thoroughly Modern Coterie’.

        The divine ethical encounter that every human faces has exposed them to a binary ethical apocalypsis that leads to an ethical dialysis of faithful Catholics from the unfaithful. Pure godly distillate separates from the disobedient waste.

        Sadly, dear Deacon Dom, is constantly falling over himself to be on their side, often conflating disparate issues, in apparent ignorance of the terrible end awaiting all obdurate advocates & practitioners of anti-Apostolic sexual immorality – be they popes or even deacons. These ‘Thoroughly Modern Millis’ loathe Christ’s much-repeated teaching that there will be those who are IN & those who are OUT.

        As Saint Paul exhorts us in Romans 6: “You cannot be slaves of sin that leads to eternal death & at the same time slaves of obedience that leads to eternal life.”

        Yet, it seems this divine instruction is water-off-a-duck’s-back to those now obdurately insisting on their own prideful innovations, who politicize The Church, insulting Apostolically faithful Catholics by calling them ‘conservatives’, ‘right-wing’, ‘backward’, ‘a fortress’, a ‘country club’, & worse; flinging political slogans that are unsupported by any reasoned argument or facts.

        Saint Peter, in 1 Peter 2, instructs us to be sure we are never spiteful, or deceitful or hypocritical, or envious or critical of one another . . .

        Pope Francis has set that aside, confident that he has the numbers who are either ignorant of The Holy Spirit inspired Apostolic texts or couldn’t-care-less anyway! Rather than being an Apostolically authentic leader of leaders in The Church, he cultivates shallow populism & division, as demagogues often do.

        Let’s all pray for all Catholics to be obedient to the divine Apostolic instructions that have empowered The Church for nigh-on two millennia.

        Ever seeking to hear and lovingly obey King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty

    • Hmh.

      The only “judgmental discrimination” I see here is coming from you, Deacon Dom, and your non-judgmental Papa Bergoglio.

    • Deacon Dom: A preposterous dichotomy characteristic of a barstool Marxist. Where do you think compassion and mercy come from if not clearheaded doctrines that define what they actually mean as opposed to empty sentiments of a field hospital where nothing actually gets done? Doctrinal imperatives about moral evil are hardly isolated from real world implications that recognize that moral evil creates real wounded victims that indulgent sentimentality ignores. Traditionalists are not what they are out of sentiment but out of the realization that immutable truth is given to us by a benevolent God Who is the source of all truth and has taught us that truth is eternal and never changes, no matter how much we lie to our sinful selves about its fungibility, wanting to believe that it does, and in so doing, creating more victims. Unlike the generosity of Catholics who take up their crosses, and know this cannot be outdated, Francis has never been inclusive of those he hates and ridicules. Would that he put an end to his Orwellian madness and convert.

    • Dcn.,

      Why don’t you come to a Latin Mass in your local inner city?

      It won’t be the country club you want it to be … we regularly have homeless and impoverished who find great peace in the ancient liturgy. Not to mention tattoos and common folk aplenty.

      I truly feel sorry for you. May Our Lady inspire you to be more inclusive and open to those with opposing viewpoints who happen to profess the same Creed.

      Ave Maria!

    • The Bergoglian field hospital is one where the wounded and maimed are welcomed to be hoodwinked into believing their supperating wounds and lopped limbs are signs of health. Divorced and remarried? Holy Communion is waiting for you. Trans? Become a godparent. Gay? Go to city hall and get married; we’re waiting to bless you. We’re here to accompany you. Go and sin some more.

      Perhaps you’re correct about one thing: conservative Catholics are a minority. The vast majority don’t believe in the Real Presence, have no problem with abortion, probably haven’t been inside a church since the last wedding or funeral, seldom pray, and, like you, are enamored of a pope who has nothing but disdain for those who refuse to give up the perpetual adolescence of the Church of What’s Happening Now. I’ll stick with the minority, thank you, rather than frolic down the wide path that leads to destruction.

      • Error: I should have typed, “. . . those who refuse to embrace the perpetual adolescence of the Church of What’s Happening Now.”

    • It shouldn’t be about politics Deacon Dom. Or conservative vs liberal. Rather, what is orthodox Christianity and what is not.

  25. Papal advisor Cardinal Seán O’Malley’s soft sell response to His Holiness’ suicide remark is expected, if one would expect O’Malley to remain one of the ‘sacred’ nine advisors. The sense is that O’Malley, seemingly to this writer more conservative than not, keeps his profile admissible to Francis that he might remain as a more realistic, Christ centered consigliere.
    Now the fact that Card O’Malley felt compelled to respond to the delighted MSNBC Norah O’Donnell interview shows his concern and likely disagreement with a papal Theodoric.

    • Correction: Norah O’Donnell, who was previously associated with MSNBC, the SS of the Left, has since graduated to 60 Minutes, the Left equivalent to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

  26. Let me be sure I understand this:

    1) We have a Pope who is doing among other things his best to destroy the Latin Mass, a form of worship almost 2000 years old and to which MILLIONS of FAITHFUL Catholics all over the world cling – despite his best efforts.
    2) He has not been bashful about his dislike of America and at the same time he is being ‘interviewed’ by an American who portrays herself as a ‘journalist’ and who is representing one of the most liberal ‘news’ organizations in the country.

    and

    3) We’re supposed to take this seriously.

    This is a joke, right?

  27. As for today’s “field hospital” Church, what better way to avert a figurative “suicide” than to commit rhetorical homicide? Other than the spelling, what’s the difference—if any—between clericalist sexual abuse and such textual abuse?

    Full stop!

    In America, it’s critical for the so-called “conservative critics” not to become exasperated and respond in kind, or even to fall into the ideological/political jargon of “conservative” and “progressive.” Not only in America, but also in continental Africa, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Peru, Kazakhstan, parts of Argentina, France and Spain, and other bishops’ conferences in addition to the United States (regarding the Rubicon crossing in Fiducia Supplicans).

    Instead, the Catholic path is to calmly reaffirm what only appears to the forwardist to be “backwardist”, as G.K. Chesterton said of the non-historicist Successors of the Apostles: “Those runners gather impetus as they run. Ages afterwards they still speak as if something had just happened. They have not lost the speed and momentum of messengers; they have hardly lost, as it were, the wild eyes of witnesses. . . .We might sometimes fancy that the Church grows younger as the world grows old” (“The Everlasting Man,” Image Books, 1925/1955, p. 268).

    Real “dialogue” within the Church enables all of us to question not only the positions of everyone beyond ourselves, but first to question our own predispositions…

    So, for example, is it really true (the “truth”?), as Pope Francis “reportedly” announces to the unbiased media, that someone branded (slandered?) as “conservative” only “clings to something and does not want to see beyond that?”

  28. Starting in 2016:

    I am a ‘deplorable’
    I am a ‘backwardist’
    I am now a ‘conservative’

    I am SO unworthy

  29. I will be interested in listening to the broadcast. Specifically, I will be interested in how many times the pope mentions the name of Jesus Christ. How he weaves evangelical efforts into his discussion, and if the Holy Spirit is felt while he speaks.
    I strive for a charitable disposition as I listen to Pope Francie, but it is a trial for which I prove often too weak.

    • He mentioned Jesus only once, at the very end. So sad. He did not sound Holy to me. He sounded shallow and narcissistic. Forgive me if I am wrong.

      • Dear Will, I think you are right.

        Of course, Jorge was not born that way, but (like “the one who chose to be lost” in John 17:12) he has built on a lifetime of anti-Apostolic self-determination to arrive at such an ungodly state.

        We’ll keep praying for ‘Pope Francis’ to repent & reform; for the sake of his soul and the sake of the many souls being misled.

  30. Galatians 1:8-9
    [8]But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.
    [9]As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

    That certainly puts us in a “dogmatic box.”

    Does it anathematize Bergoglio?

    • Yes! True Catholics are generally reluctant to put anyone in that box! However, the inescapable truth is that, among the popes of modern times, Francis stands out as one who has rashly anathematised himself in many dimensions.

      Maybe God is giving us a tutorial: first the exposure of clerical criminal child sexual molestations, sexual abuses of vulnerable adults, financial misappropriations, pathetic attempts to deceitfully cover-up clerical malfeasances (so further traumatising the victims); and now a pagan pope who dresses like a sheep but is a vicious wolf within.

      What God hopes for – that we’d mature as Catholic individuals who are deep in The New Testament, totally sold-out servants of King Jesus Christ, saturated with The Holy Spirit, in love with The Holy Trinity, and able to love even our worst enemies.

      Why? Because those are the sort of Catholics who will make The Church Great Again and show the world that Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God and the only doorway into an eternity of Life in God’s Kingdom.

      Confident that God’s plan is the best plan; love & blessings from Marty

      • Can a pope be anathematized . . ?

        At the Third Council of Constantinople on 16 September 681, in the XIII session, the Monothelites were anathematized, including Honorius 1st, Prelate of Rome, as: “having followed them in all things”.

        Pope Leo 2nd’s letter of confirmation of the Council commended it for it had “perfectly preached the definition of the true faith” and the Pope made reference to the condemnation of his predecessor:

        “We anathematize the inventors of the new error . . . betrayers rather than leaders and also Honorius 1st, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted.

        Within the year a Latin translation of the Acts of the council had been disseminated and signed by the Bishops throughout the West. The condemnation of Pope Honorius 1st was reiterated by Pope Leo’s successors and subsequent councils.

        Seems like it can be done.

        • Does this ring a bell today?

          “BETRAYERS RATHER THAN LEADERS – WHO DID NOT ATTEMPT TO SANCTIFY THIS APOSTOLIC CHURCH WITH THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION, BUT BY PROFANE TREACHERY PERMITTED ITS PURITY TO BE POLLUTED.”

          Some would say Honorius 1st’s lapse seems comparatively trivial when contrasted with the obstinate, profane, polluting treacheries of Pope Francis 1st & his bosom buddies. They seem to far more profoundly merit the same anathema.

  31. What’s that saying: “Is the Pope Catholic”? Well, it seems to have become more of a real question now. Who’d have thunk it.

  32. Pope Francis is on steam Roller, and it is not likely that the damage he has done regarding his views on faith and morality will ever cease. Our only hope is for Almighty God to intervene

  33. In the New Testament Christ enacted His New and Everlasting Covenant. Through Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist I was bound to this covenant. My covenant is with Christ, not the world. This covenant is entrusted to each generation to honor and faithfully transmit to the next generation. It is a sacred trust. As a Catholic I am no longer entirely my own to do as I please with the faith. Through the New and Everlasting Covenant I have a higher duty to God.
    *
    Everything in the Garden of Eden was put there by God, and were the things that are God’s. In the same way in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants everything in the vineyard was put there by the householder. How trustworthy were Adam and Eve, and the wicked tenants?
    *
    The Old Testament chronicles the troubles that Israel had with being faithful to the Old Covenant. Too often they gave into the world and to worldly ways. Some in the New Israel of the Church appear to be just as faithless as Israel was. How trustworthy were the clergy who were involved in the clerical abuse scandal, and the cover-up? Did they take their ordinations, vows, promises, and oaths seriously? The behavior looked like that of the hook-up culture.

  34. Bergoglio is very troubled and disturbed man. He fools no one except himself. To assert that US Catholics conservatives are uniquely “traditional” – who dare to criticize and disagree and are apparently suicidal – is to ignore that an entire continent of bishops, priests and laypeople repudiated Fiducia supplicans. Moreover, this is a ploy to involve himself in US politics in an election year. CBS, Bergoglio and democrats know that Catholics got Biden elected in 2020… and this man is giving his stamp of approval on democrat, therefore, Joe Biden, policies. He is dangerously disturbed.

  35. He hates Americans. But Americans are USED to other nations hating us. Guess what? It comes with the territory. Mark us down for “couldn’t care less”.

    • LJ;

      I would disagree – I don’t think he actually hates us, but 1) he doesn’t have a clue about what makes us tick and 2) he needs someone to blame so he can play ‘poor brave me’, and we fill the bill.

      OMT – count me in for “couldn’t care less.”

  36. What else is to be expected from a South American leftist? The sooner he goes (back to Argentina or beyond) the better!

  37. Thank you Pope Francis for freeing me from my box! I was stucked, but now I’ve come out, and life is so much more gay! Liberated at last! All this makes me want to sing at Sant’Egidio! Frolic at the UN! Have a mural painted of me and my hairdresser floating up to heaven in fishnet! Invite me to hang out with some of your cool friends – we can dress up like a Met gala! Invite Zanchetta (assuming he is out of jail). Even ask Rupnik (that devil!). Give your little monkey a kiss from me! 💋

  38. God’s ways are mysterious indeed.

    It may be that Bergoglio is actually uniting the Church. This pope’s incompetence, corruption and slander finally seems to be more than his progressive cohorts can handle.

    My parish priest, who was a stout Bergogliite a year ago, now admits to grave doubts about where the Synodaling Argentine is taking the Church.

    Even the CWR popesplainers in these precincts are uncharacteristically restrained in response to this, his most recent outburst.

    Apparently there are some Bergoglian rants too outrageous even for them.

    • Well said, dear Brineyman!

      It’s Pentecost Sunday here in Australia. The second reading at Holy Mass contains words that should iron-out some of the worst creases caused by PF & the eager Bergoglian’s in their ignorance of the LIFE-GIVING New Testament worldview.

      “When self-indulgence is at work the results are obvious: fornication, gross indecency & sexual irresponsibility; idolatry & sorcery; feuds & wrangling, jealousy, bad temper & quarrels, disagreements & factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies & such things.”

      “I WARN YOU NOW, as I warned you before: those who behave like this WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”

      Surely sufficient to cause any rational person to repent & reform.

      Much love to all, in the overflowing Holy Spirit of God; blessings from marty

  39. True to form, when Pope Francis makes an allegation, it is almost always what he himself is guilty of. He is rigidly following the liberalizing tendencies of all the denominations that are modernizing themselves right out of existence. Whether his attitude can best be described as suicidal or homicidal is an open question.

  40. Something is very wrong with this Pope, I can’t put my finger on it just yet. Maybe we found our AntiChrist!!!
    Argentina was known for keeping Hitler safe after World War Two. If so, then surely they had to be communist amongst them. Maybe using the Catholic Church to cover it up.
    Only my opinion! I’m at my saddest point with this man. I love my Church so much. Christ built for all.

    • Yes Lord please forgive me if I’ve chosen the wrong words or even the wrong thoughts. This Pope is very confusing to me. I don’t understand where he is coming from or more likely where he’s trying to go with us American Catholics! He is to represent the church of all countries, and the teachings of it. I feel he has singled us out entirely.
      I never felt this way with Pope John paul the second, not even once:( 😓

    • You cannot be serious! Michael Lofton is the very worst of the contortionist popesplainers. I do not know any serious theologian who, well, takes him seriously.

  41. Matthew 5:22
    “But I say to you,
    that whosoever is angry
    with his brother,
    shall be in danger of the judgment.

    And whosoever shall
    say to his brother,
    Raca (which means “empty-headed or stupid”),
    shall be in danger of the council.

    And whosoever shall say,
    Thou Fool,

    shall be in danger
    of hell fire.”

  42. This comment dates back to March 2023 – yet it may still be an apposite reflection on our pope’s ungodly performances.

    Am glad so many other sound Catholics can see that: ‘The Emperor has no clothes on’. Pope Francis appears entirely spiritually naked in his letter to Arch. Fernandez.

    The Pope’s theological spin tailors have so mesmerized him that his letter is entirely self-referential. No single stitch of clothing apparent; nothing at all woven by the saving words & life-example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that is so richly ours in the writings of the 9 apostolic authors of the 27 texts of The New Testament: the godly clothing of 2 millennia of Catholicism.

    In this letter, Pope Francis is WILFUL NUDE, whilst fantasizing that he is wearing uniquely fashionable new clothes.

    (Please recall, dear Pope Francis, the sumptuously clothed Catechism of the Catholic Church, robed with over 3,500 citations from the apostolic New Testament).

    It seems that, tragically, The Holy Father has come to the point of spurning the tenets of faith we have all believed in and lived by as: “a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything”.

    The consensus response in the comments here asks:
    “Who is it who is trying to dominate whom . . ?”

    Un-spin his letter and our current pope writes that: “Under my new theology, obdurately unrepentant offenders against the teachings of Christ are now to find a warm welcome among the faithful!” That is, rather than unrepentant sinners being mercifully taught The Gospel Truth & being lovingly invited to REPENT and be saved, and thus dressed in the same marriage garment as the rest of us non-rebel Catholics.

    No one ever imagined we’d live to see a pope organizing an anti-Apostolic rebellion.

    Keep praying everyone!

    Ever in the joy of obedience to Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

  43. “… No city or house divided against itself will stand…” (Mt 12:25). Pope Francis is clearly DIVIDING Christ’s Church as a number of Major Archbishops and Bishops refuse to implement his immoral declarations within their jurisdictions. A clear sign of the pope’s errors… and yet he goes on.

    • And, dear EMP, further ‘signs of the pope’s errors’, from Romans 12:

      “Worship God, I beg you, in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.”

      “Do not model yourself on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modelled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.”

      “I want to urge each one among you not to exaggerate your real importance. Each of you must judge yourself soberly by the standard of the faith.”

      Apparently, PF is unaware that our one model, ‘the standards of the faith’, are set in the Rock of the Holy Spirit-inspired, Apostolic testimony of The New Testament.

      Knowingly, or unknowingly, he is working to split-off a different church from our original & venerable Catholic New Testament Church.

      Perhaps CWR readers could suggest an appropriate descriptor for PF’s church? My humble suggestion is: Bergoglian Anti-Apostolic Libertarian church, or in short, BAAL church.

      Let every Catholic be aware! Surely, a time of choosing is fast approaching!

      Always seeking to hear & lovingly follow King Jesus Christ: blessings from marty

  44. Interesting take from Crisis Magazine – Harrison Butker represents the future, Pope Francis the past. Delicious irony!

    • From CWR September 2018 – the opening of my eyes to the papacy of Francis . . .

      “Trish, Kevin, Vivienne – ‘spot on’. At this stage, unless Pope Francis provides us with more information, the accumulating evidence sadly suggests that for many years he has been an energetic concealer and protector of his sexually-abusive clerical friends. To put it frankly: he’s been an enemy of the suffering victims of clerical abuse and injustice. Therefore, is it not entirely inappropriate for him to refuse to address the matters and add insult to injury by pleading the virtue of Christ-like silence.

      I’ve been a great supporter of Pope Francis and am now utterly flabbergasted by the revelations of his – let’s face it – habitual criminal protection of sexually-abusive colleagues. This is by no means an in-house Catholic scandal.

      Billions of people across the world want Pope Francis to explain matters and/or to confess his past behaviours were deeply sinful, ask forgiveness, and clearly define a new day for the Church; one of total transparency, justice for even the least powerful, and severe punishment for those who use their positions of power to ruthlessly exploit God’s sheep and lambs.

      Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:8 firmly instructs: “We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”

  45. Lest we forget!
    Another scandalous example of the anti-Apostolic beliefs of PF.

    The cardinal said the interview, in which the Pope allegedly denied the existence of hell, was ‘beyond tolerable’ CH 6.4.18

    The fallout from the Pope’s interview with Eugenio Scalfari, in which he apparently cast doubt on the existence of hell, is “beyond tolerable”, Cardinal Raymond Burke has said.

    Scalfari, the co-founder of Italy’s daily ‘La Repubblica’, claimed last week that Pope Francis told him the souls of sinners “disappear” upon death, adding: “There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

    The comments generated headlines around the world and were reported in most major secular media outlets.

    “What happened with the latest interview given to Eugenio Scalfari during Holy Week and made public on Holy Thursday was beyond tolerable,” Cardinal Burke said in an interview with ‘La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana’.

    “That a famous atheist claims to announce a revolution in the teaching of the Catholic Church, believing to speak in the name of the Pope, denying the immortality of the human soul and the existence of hell, has been a source of profound scandal not only for many Catholics but also for many lay people who respect the Catholic Church and its teachings, even if they do not share them.”

    The Holy See responded to the Scalfari article by saying that the comments cannot be “considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father”. However, Cardinal Burke criticized the response as “strongly inadequate”.

    “Instead of clearly re-stating the truth about the immortality of the human soul and hell, the denial only said that some of the words quoted are not of the Pope,” he said.

    “It did not say that the erroneous, even heretical ideas expressed by these words are not shared by Pope and that the Pope repudiates such ideas as contrary to the Catholic faith.

    “This playing with faith and doctrine, at the highest level of the Church, rightfully leaves priests and faithful scandalized.”

    Cardinal Burke also condemned the silence of many bishops and cardinals on the matter and was especially critical of those who “spread fantasies of a new Church, of a Church that takes a totally different direction from the past, imagining, for example, a ‘new paradigm’ for the Church.”

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