Francesco Federico
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The Plot to Change Catholicism

THE Vatican always seems to have the secrets and intrigues of a Renaissance court — which, in a way, is what it still remains. The ostentatious humility of Pope Francis, his scoldings of high-ranking prelates,have changed this not at all; if anything, the pontiff’s ambitions have encouraged plotters and counterplotters to work with greater vigor.
And right now the chief plotter is the pope himself.
Francis’s purpose is simple: He favors the proposal, put forward by the church’s liberal cardinals, that would allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion without having their first marriage declared null.

Thanks to the pope’s tacit support, this proposal became a central controversy in last year’s synod on the family and the larger follow-up, ongoing in Rome right now..
But if his purpose is clear, his path is decidedly murky. Procedurally, the pope’s powers are near-absolute: If Francis decided tomorrow to endorse communion for the remarried, there is no Catholic Supreme Court that could strike his ruling down.
At the same time, though, the pope is supposed to have no power to change Catholic doctrine. This rule has no official enforcement mechanism (the Holy Spirit is supposed to be the crucial check and balance), but custom, modesty, fear of God and fear of schism all restrain popes who might find a doctrinal rewrite tempting.

And a change of doctrine is what conservative Catholics, quite reasonably, believe that the communion proposal favored by Francis essentially implies.
There’s probably a fascinating secular political science tome to be written on how the combination of absolute and absolutely-limited power shapes the papal office. In such a book, Francis’s recent maneuvers would deserve a chapter, because he’s clearly looking for a mechanism that would let him exercise his powers without undercutting his authority.

The key to this search has been the synods, which have no official doctrinal role but which can project an image of ecclesiastical consensus. So a strong synodal statement endorsing communion for the remarried as a merely “pastoral” change, not a doctrinal alteration, would make Francis’s task far easier.

Unfortunately such a statement has proven difficult to extract — because the ranks of Catholic bishops include so many Benedict XVI and John Paul II-appointed conservatives, and also because the “pastoral” argument is basically just rubbish.

The church’s teaching that marriage is indissoluble has already been pushed close to the breaking point by this pope’s new expedited annulment process; going all
the way to communion without annulment would just break it.

So to overcome resistance from bishops who grasp this obvious point, first last year’s synod and now this one have been, to borrow from the Vatican journalist Edward Pentin’s recent investigative book, “rigged” by the papal-appointed organizers in favor of the pope’s preferred outcome.

The documents guiding the synod have been written with that goal in mind. The pope has made appointments to the synod’s ranks with that goal in mind, not hesitating to add even aged cardinals tainted by the sex abuse scandal if they are allied to the cause of change. The Vatican press office has filtered the synod’s closed-door (per the pope’s directive) debates to the media with that goal in mind. The churchmen charged with writing the final synod report have been selected with that goal in mind. And Francis himself, in his daily homilies, has consistently criticized Catholicism’s “doctors of the law,” its modern legalists and Pharisees — a not-even-thinly-veiled signal of his views.

(Though of course, in the New Testament the Pharisees allowed divorce; it was Jesus who rejected it.)

And yet his plan is not necessarily succeeding. There reportedly still isn’t anything like a majority for the proposal within the synod, which is probably why the organizers hedged their bets for a while
about whether there would even be a final document. And the conservatives — African, Polish, American, Australian — have been less surprised than last fall, and quicker to draw public lines and try to box the pontiff in with private appeals.

The entire situation abounds with ironies. Aging progressives are seizing a moment they thought had slipped away, trying to outmaneuver younger conservatives who recently thought they owned the Catholic future.
The African bishops are defending the faith of the European past against Germans and Italians weary of their own patrimony. A Jesuit pope is effectively at war with his own Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the erstwhile Inquisition — a situation that would make 16th century heads spin.

For a Catholic journalist, for any journalist, it’s a fascinating story, and speaking strictly as a journalist, I have no idea how it will end. Speaking as a Catholic, I expect the plot to ultimately fail; where the pope and the historic faith seem to be in tension, my bet is on the faith.

But for an institution that measures its life span in millennia, “ultimately” can take a long time to arrive.

www.nytimes.com/…/the-plot-to-cha…
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KTOZ JAK BOG
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Cardinal Baldisseri was consecrated bishop by John Paul and placed on the powerful congregation for bishops by Pope Benedict.
Homosexualist Bruno Forte was made archbishop by John Paul in 2004 and personally laid hands on by then Cdl. Ratzinger, one of only 26 men ever made bishop by him.
Homosexualist Donald Wuerl was made bishop by John Paul and created a cardinal by Pope Benedict in 2010.
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Cardinal Baldisseri was consecrated bishop by John Paul and placed on the powerful congregation for bishops by Pope Benedict.
Homosexualist Bruno Forte was made archbishop by John Paul in 2004 and personally laid hands on by then Cdl. Ratzinger, one of only 26 men ever made bishop by him.
Homosexualist Donald Wuerl was made bishop by John Paul and created a cardinal by Pope Benedict in 2010.
New Zealand's John Dew was made cardinal by Pope Francis, true — but he was consecrated a bishop by John Paul.
Women-deacon-supporter Canadian Paul-Andre Durocher was made bishop by John Paul II in 1997 and made archbishop by Benedict in 2011.
Essentially heretical Cdl. Marx was made bishop by John Paul in 1996, and it was Pope Benedict who placed him the position to become this troublesome by making him cardinal in 2010.
John Paul made Walter Kasper both bishop in 1989 and cardinal in 2001 — this after then Cdl. Ratzinger had already publicly crossed swords with him over the whole "Holy Communion for divorced and remarried" question, which Kapser had already been rambling on about for 30 years.
Exceedingly liberal Charles Palmer-Buckle, the only African to talk openly in favor of the Communion question, was made bishop and archbishop by John Paul.
Another exceedingly liberal African, Peter Turkson, was made bishop and archbishop by Pope John Paul.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of India, a Pope Francis favorite, was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict.
Brisbane Australia's archbishop Mark Coleridge was raised to his high place as archbishop by Pope Benedict.
And all kinds of troublesome prelates — Roger Mahoney, homosexualist Joseph Bernardin, sex-abuse covering-up Cdl. Danneels, Theodore McCarrick — were all made cardinals by Pope St. John Paul.
And the list of prelates who trouble Catholic media types has one more name on it made cardinal by John Paul: Jorge Bergoglio.
During all these appointments by John Paul, one of his most intimate advisers was then Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger, hailed as a hero by many in the "conservative" crowd. Once he became Pope, he continued a string of very questionable and troublesome appointments. While he did appoint some good guys, as Pope Francis has, he has enough bad guys on his roll to raise some serious questions — including some of the big names at this Synod, like Baldisseri, homosexualist Forte, Wuerl and Marx, who owe their current prestige directly to Pope Benedict.
Dr Bobus
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There IS a plot to destroy Catholicism, but it's not new. It arose in the late 1930's when Karl Rahner began his project to destroy philosophical and theological certitude. More than 40 years ago a priest told me that it will take 100 years to get this Existentialism out of the Church. I thought then that he was too pessimistic. Now I wonder whether it can be done in 100 years.
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