Garry Wills Can’t Conceal His Christian Joy

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“Without joy that person is not a true believer?”

“Without joy that person is not a true believer?”

Notorious grim catholic dissident Garry Wills continues his celebratory Pope Francis book tour, having fun like liberals do by attacking the Faithful and gloating.

At a recent I talk I gave about Pope Francis, a man asked me, “Why do more non-Catholics like the pope than Catholics do?” He was wrong, of course. A Pew poll two months ago found that 90 percent of Catholics like what the pope is doing—and the number is even higher (95 percent) among the most observant, Mass attending Catholics. The percentage of non-Catholics who view the pope favorably does not get above the 70s.

If any orthodox Catholics out there like Pope Francis and what he’s doing, here’s news.  He doesn’t like you.

Yet the question was understandable. There is a perception of great resistance to the pope in his own church. This is largely the product of noise. Extremists get more press coverage than blander types, and some Catholic bloggers have suggested that the pope is not truly Catholic. They are right to be in a panic. They are not used to having a pope who is a Christian. They call Francis a radical because he deplores the sequestration of great wealth for a rich few and deprivation of the many poor. But Francis is a moderate. Jesus was the radical: “How hard it will be for the wealthy man to enter the kingdom of God…. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:23, 26). In the Gospel of Luke (16:19-31), when the rich man (Dives) calls for succor from hell, Abraham, holding the poor man (Lazarus) in his bosom, answers: “All the good things fell to you while you were alive, and all the bad to Lazarus; now he has his consolation here, and it is you who are in agony.”

You ‘extremists’ and your noise! How dare you suggest the Pope doesn’t believe all Catholic doctrines.  It’s not like he’s given you any reason to doubt!

You don’t like him because you’re greedy and he loves the poor. You’re just not used to a Pope who is a Christian?!

It took 2,000 years to get one who is, right Garry?

 

Jeb Bush: Pope Francis Republican

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Cardinal Dolan meditates on another Bush presidency

Cardinal Dolan meditates on another Bush presidency

I get the impression that Jeb Bush is so far removed from any consciousness of GOP voters that he’s become a completely technical politician.  Every phrase out of his mouth is some kind of arrow shot at a target.

NRO’s Kathryn Lopez phoned GOP Presidential heir-designate Jeb Bush recently, and right away they’re talking about Francis, their mutual pope, and his ‘way with words’.

I’m so jealous.  If only I knew how to say those ‘simple things’ that draw people toward me.

What does Jeb Bush think of Pope Francis? The pope must be “the envy of a lot of people in public life,” Bush says. He has a “remarkable” way of “saying the simplest things that draws people towards his beliefs.”It slipped my mind in my new busy-ness but I forgot those fond memories of my becoming Catholic.

Twenty years ago this Easter, at a vigil Mass in 1995, Bush was received into the Catholic Church. We talked by phone briefly on Easter Monday afternoon about the anniversary of his conversion to Catholicism — which had actually slipped his mind. In the busy-ness of my “new work,” he says, “I had totally forgotten it was the 20th anniversary last Saturday. It brought back fond memories.

”When the subject turns to the new FrancisChurch we get a hyper-canned version of the frozen Catholic right:

Asked if he’s experienced change in the Church in the 20 years since his conversion, he points to the stability of Catholicism, but then immediately notes the “obvious” change in the Church the “tone and emphasis” of Pope Francis has brought.

He notes that the media may be missing the whole story when the pope gets into “specifics.” Bush predicts that there might “turn out to be a real disappointment” for people, especially non-Catholics, “who think this guy is really cool” and expect “big changes” in terms of doctrine.

How could they possibly be disappointed when they’ve already been thrilled?

Does Bush imagine we should expect ‘small’ changes in doctrine, or that we should be pleased when they don’t turn out to be big?  What does the Governor think is Catholic?

We talk a little bit about the pope’s upcoming visit to the United States this fall. The mere fact that Philadelphia could be expecting in the range of 2 million people, he says, is “a powerful statement in and of itself — that this many people would want to come and hear the pope and participate in communion with him.”

Are there any statistics on the Pope’s appearances today that aren’t inflated?  With whom does Jeb Bush think people ‘participate in communion’?  Is he talking about Holy Communion or communion with Francis?  This phrasing is odd, isn’t it? It reminds me of when Obama praises “His Holiness’s pronouncements.”  These politicians seem to think we’re all Children of the Corn.

Can an attitude like Pope Francis’s help Catholics in public life, especially in situations like last week’s unpleasant upheaval over religious-freedom laws? “Absolutely,” says Governor Bush.

“I do think he can help change the conversation. Because right now, it’s just full of landmines.”

A minefield.  That’s America to Jeb.  A more elitist characterization could not be made, or a more frightened one.

On the topic of Indiana and related controversies, he adds: “It’s hard to imagine a country with our tradition of tolerance where now it’s ‘either/or.’ . . . A country as big and noble as our country doesn’t have space to be able to allow people of conscience to act on their faith and people not be discriminated against? I think we can figure this out.”

This is the Bishops’ position, those conservative lions.  Keep trying!  There must be a way to force bakers to bake gay wedding cakes and still call it freedom.  Endeavor to persevere!

Making clear he’s not mistaking himself for pope or pastor, Bush suggests that “in politics, we really need to focus on language that cuts through that gets beyond them vs. us, the divide that always seems to prevail.”

He readily admits he doesn’t get it right all the time. “I think about . . . how I can improve how I express my views,” he says. People’s beliefs on a lot of hot-button issues like religious liberty, life, among others, may be “informed by faith, your life’s journey, the thousands of interactions you have with people,” and are matters “way beyond politics,” he says. At the same time, discussing them is not only unavoidable, but necessary. So how to do so compellingly, convincingly, in such a way as to invite collaboration and even conversion (of the political sort)?

Well, it seems following that Pope Francis model is the key here.  It’s about finding that special language which unites.

Pope Francis’s lesson may just be, Bush suggests, “Where you say it, how you say, it is important.”

“You’ve got to figure out a way that gets beyond being pushed into a position where you sound like you’re intolerant of people who may not agree,” he says. “But you have to say what you believe as well,” surmising that in the case of Francis the media, in search of sound bites, may have glossed over some of the pope’s more inconvenient underlying beliefs.

Despite the fact Pope Francis is a liberal, he is not a Bush.  His position is more akin to Obama because he represents the dissident Left within the Church.  From Bush’s disinterested American perspective, Francis looks like a smooth talker skillfully manning a faithful conservative post, but that’s only catholic media spin.  Francis isn’t protecting faithful positions.  They are his targets.

Saying things well is not the Pope’s priority.  He demonstrates daily that it doesn’t matter what he says, he can get away with it.  The media will always support Pope Francis so long as he keeps doing their work in Rome, but they won’t treat Jeb Bush that way if he takes the primaries.  In that case, just like a bishop, it will be his job to pretend, capitulate, and lose – but there won’t be anybody praising his words while he does it.

If I were the governor I’d reconsider my humble and gushing esteem for Pope Francis and his ‘tone’.  They both don’t play for the same team and the Pope plays to win.  It’s not like Jeb would get his vote.

 

 

Liturgy of the New Evangelization: Forward Into What?

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Is this forward enough?

This isn’t turning back, right?

Pope Francis, standing on the site of Pope Paul VI’s formal suppression of the Ancient Mass, said, “We must go forward, ever forward.  To go back is wrong!”

CWR’s Matthew James Christoff  seems to wonder:

Forward into what?

Despite the fact the New Evangelization has been an ongoing emphasis by the Catholic Church for over forty years, it has failed to stem the disastrous losses of the faithful in the U.S. Since 2000, 14 million Catholics have left the faith, parish religious education participation of children has dropped by 24%, Catholic school attendance has dropped by 19%, baptisms of infants has dropped by 28%, baptism of adults has dropped by 31% and sacramental Catholic marriages have dropped by 41%. Something is desperately wrong with the Church’s approach to the New Evangelization.

One reason the New Evangelization is faltering is because it is missing men. The New Emangelization Project has documented the serious Catholic “man-crisis” in the United States. 1 in 3 baptized Catholic men have left the faith and of those who remain, 50-60% of them are “Casual Catholics”, men who don’t know and don’t practice the faith. Of those who practice the faith, many are lukewarm, not converted to the point of conviction, a conviction in which they are prepared to make disciples for Christ and His Catholic Church. The New Evangelization has largely ignored men, with no substantial or sustained efforts to directly confront the Catholic “man-crisis”.

The Catholic “man-crisis” matters. The souls of men matter and many are being lost; for example, two thirds of Christian men are looking at porn at least monthly and the numbers are much higher for younger men. The faith of the children matter and huge numbers of young people are leaving the faith because they have followed their fathers out of the Church. Without a New Emangelization in which millions of Catholic men become newly committed to Christ and His Church, there can be no New Evangelization.

While a complex set of forces have driven the Catholic “man-crisis”, including both massive cultural changes outside the Church and serious missteps within the Church, the lack of engagement of men in the Mass is a major contributing factor: men don’t understand the Mass and well-meaning, but misinformed priests in many parishes have de-sacralized the Mass causing many men to simply “drift away.”

Mass in my parish is not only profane, it’s also loud, distracting and ugly. It’s not just feminized, it’s Broadway-musicalized.  It’s homosexualized and self-centered. The flat screen TVs are over eight feet high.  The prayers of the faithful go on for years, and the pastor always teaches something angry, sentimental, and destined to carefully unravel your natural beliefs.

Men of unsure faith and keen sense find our Masses repulsive, directly contrary to their virtues and instincts, and in many ways they are.

Christoff asks:

Why is the Mass a key driver of the Catholic “man-crisis”? Research shows that almost 9 out of 10 Catholic men don’t participate in a Catholic activity outside of attending Mass; if men aren’t being reached in the Mass, they aren’t being reached. Only about 1/3 of Catholic men are attending Mass on a weekly basis. Only 1 in 50 Catholic men have a monthly practice of Confession, underscoring the fact that many are attending Mass without a proper preparation to receive the Eucharist. 48% of Catholic men are “bored” in the Mass and 55% of Catholic men don’t feel they “get anything out of the Mass.” These statistics confirm what dozens of the New Emangelization Project interviews with top Catholic men’s evangelists know: men don’t understand the Mass. No man can truly understand the Mass and be bored.

After noting Cardinal Burke’s courageous and necessary recommendation to correct the destruction of the Mass particularly in light of men, Christoff concludes.

After forty years, the New Evangelization has so far failed to reverse the growing losses of Catholics in the West. Rather than a continued parade of programs and events, the Church needs to get back to the basics; the Mass and men. When there is a Mass Conversion of Men in which millions of men and priests are evangelized and catechized to the point of conversion in the Mass, the Church will be renewed and the promise of the New Evangelization will be fulfilled.