UK Guardian: Pro-Lifers Hate FrancisMercy

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Feeling the FrancisMercy

Feeling the New Mercy

At the UK Guardian Anthea Butler provides a great example of the whole point behind the new abortion FrancisMercy.

Pope Francis’s pastoral letter for the Year of Mercy, indicating that priests may absolve those who procure abortions, does nothing to change Catholic church policy with regards to how abortion is viewed. Current canonical law states that abortion is a grave sin, resulting in “automatic” excommunication.

It also doesn’t change very much when it comes to the mechanics of sin and forgiveness in the Catholic Church. Current teachings state that bishops could give priests the right to forgive a woman for having an an abortion if she was truly penitent; for this year, priests do not specifically have to ask a bishop for the right to absolve anyone seeking forgiveness for assisting an abortion or having one. (And Pope John Paul II gave priests the same term-limited right in the year 2000.)

What the Pope did was make a deft statement on the eve of his first visit to Cuba and the United States – a very Jesuitical move from the Jesuit pontiff. It presents to the public and press a more forgiving, more open church, which needs all the good PR feelings it can muster.

So far, so good.

In a letter outlining the preparations for the Year of Mercy beginning on 8 December 2015, the pope stated he is “conceding to all priests for the Jubilee year the discretion to absolve the sin of abortion to those who have procured it”.

While the edict is not a change in canon law, it does give a pathway to forgiveness for what the church terms “a grave sin”. Once a person is absolved, then they are back in “good standing’ with the Catholic church, and are able to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist and be accepted into heaven.

Not so sure about this ‘new pathway’ she’s talking about, but it’s great to hear a big secular paper actually explain Confession, Holy Communion, and forgiveness in our Faith.

But wait:

The move to offer absolution to women who had abortions is likely to rankle conservatives who have found themselves embattled with this pope, who hews closely to Catholic church teachings but still makes comments like “who am I to judge” with regards to homosexuality and calls upon Church leaders to get active on climate change.

The letter particularly puts the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops once again in the interesting position of having to support the pope, even though many of them are staunch anti-abortion advocates who may not have wished to extend – or even forbidden the extension of – forgiveness to those women who have sought it regarding abortions. Many of those bishops have been eager to fight the culture wars surrounding abortion rights in the United States; this announcement reduces their bluster substantively.

They were doing so well, weren’t they?  They were talking about the Church and not making things up.  Pro-life faithful bishops don’t want forgiveness for abortions!  Now we have to silence the culture war?

Just when we thought maybe the secular left would start to understand Christ’s mercy, we find out they only get FrancisMercy.  FrancisMercy is only for liberals.

 

 

 

 

 

Blinding FrancisMercy Assault Undone in a Day

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Blinded by all the mercy

Briefly blinded to the Truth

It’s only September 2nd and the Obama network of dictators, the UN, their Vatican, its hierarchy, and the entire media machine are all hyping FrancisVisit ahead of the Paris Summit.  Right out of the box they hit us with a bewildering cocktail of assaults of course under the banner of ‘mercy.’  With his left he disarmed his faithful critics.  With his right Pope Francis made the entire faithless world think he just forgave abortions.

Though extremely clever, the Francis brand is better with its right than its left because it’s only taken a day for us to bounce back.  Mahound’s Paradise chimed in.

One of the headlines yesterday was that in honor of the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has granted to every priest the authority to absolve the sin of abortion, at least for the Jubilee year. The implicit subtext is that priests did not have this authority before. The relevant text is reprinted at the end of this post.

While this declaration has been hailed in many quarters as a sort of stunning development–an example of the Pope’s new Church of Mercy in action, its actual effect in terms of the practical ability to obtain absolution for abortion is . . . wait for it . . . almost zero.

Why do I say that?

Because priests could do it anyway.

Or to put it differently, as with many things surrounding this Pope, the reality is different from the hype.

The word ‘hype’ is so apt for this Propagandist-Pope.

The writer goes on to describe the many, many ways that the restrictions on Confession and absolution for abortion are legally lifted already.  In reality there are no limits upon the Mercy of God for the repentant.  Of course, most people do not know that.  They think the Church is all about hating people.

Here the reader may stop and ask, isn’t this all just so complicated? Shouldn’t the Pope be commended for making it simple and transparent (during the Jubilee Year only, we should add, then we go back to the regular rules)? The answer to this is that while the rules might be somewhat complicated–it’s taken me 1,000+ words to explain them–the reality or the practice is not. If one has been a party to abortion, “easy” absolution has always been available, or, more accurately, has been available at least since 1983 and in many cases earlier.

The truth of the matter of course is that the real impediment is not some 24 hour waiting period that would apply in only a small minority of cases anyway, but the state of mind of the potential penitent–not desiring to obtain absolution from a priest, or being afraid of it, ignorant as to its importance or whatever.

The Pope’s announcement was, to put it simply, a PR move.

This is the cold hard truth about FrancisMercy.  It’s PR.  ‘Mercy for the peripheries’ to put it another way.  It’s supposed to reel in the lost, but it will only serve to do two things:

  1. Confirm them in their sins.
  2. Make Pope Francis look like the Messiah again so he can be harnessed by the Left.

He is a ‘transformational figure,’ remember, meaningful to much more than just ‘catholics.’

But those who are wise as serpents in these matters might look on it in another way: It’s a PR move to stress the goodness and mercy not of God, but of this Pope, and to implicitly condemn the “old” or “traditional” Church (in other words the eternal Catholic Church) of being, well, mean.

(I should note that the sub-headline to many stories on the Pope’s announcement plays exactly into that–“traditionalists” were “dismayed” at the Pope offering an “easy out” to such a grave sin. Given the stress by traditionalists on confession, that’s almost a complete inversion of the truth.)

If the Pope were truly interested in saving those who were prisoners of mortal sin, he would call all non-Catholics to convert (you need to be a Catholic, obviously, to receive the sacrament of absolution) instead of implying that it doesn’t matter and condemning those who think it does–“proselytism is solemn nonsense…the most important thing is to journey together towards the good.”

If the Pope were truly interested in reminding his flock of the necessity of confession, he would ask all Catholics to go and go regularly, and require that his bishops and priests make it more readily available. Announce it from the pulpit often, allot more time to it, put the confession booths back and stop storing hymnals in them.

If the Pope were truly interested in offering absolution to those who were a party to abortion, he would implore them to see a priest today, not wait until the start of his own Jubilee Year on December 8.

That is the last word on the subject of yesterday.

 

On Corpus Christi Pope Francis Disturbs

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Not repentance, Confession, and Jesus all rolled into one

Repentance, Confession, and Jesus all rolled into one?

In honor of Corpus Christi, Pope Francis spoke about the Holy Eucharist.  As usual he said some uplifting things but, true to form, some of the things he said were unsettling, some were disturbing, and some were jarring.

We are accustomed to being wary now.  We can’t just assume Pope Francis is presenting us with Catholicism when he speaks, can we?

The Eucharist is the seal of God’s covenant, uniting Christians and giving them the strength to bring God’s love to others, even when faith carries a high price, Pope Francis has said.

The Eucharist does give us strength to love others, even when faith carries a high price, but is it really a ‘seal of God’s covenant?’  I thought it was God Himself.

Does Communion unite Christians with each other, or does receiving Him unite us all with Christ?

Celebrating the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ with an evening Mass outside Rome’s Basilica of St John Lateran, Pope Francis said the church and its members will never cease being in awe of the Eucharist.

Is this not something we can take as a given, since God is awesome?

Pope Francis asked the faithful as they walked through the city with the Eucharist to remember “our many brothers and sisters who do not have the freedom to express their faith in the Lord Jesus”.

This is true.  The freedom to process through the streets is a great and necessary thing.  I wish more of us felt free and willing to do so.

“Let us be united with them; let us sing with them, praise with them, adore with them,” he said. “And, in our hearts, let us venerate those brothers and sisters who were asked to sacrifice their lives out of fidelity to Christ. May their blood, united to the Lord’s, be a pledge of peace and reconciliation for the whole world.”

The Pope has made it clear before that by ‘martyrs’ he means anyone killed for professing Christ, not just Catholics.  The vast majority of those murdered for Christianity lately are not Roman Catholics.  Is their blood united to the Lord’s?  How much heresy and sin would a murdered ‘christian’ have to embrace before there was some disunity?

How can the deaths of Christians at the hands of Muslims be “pledges of peace and reconciliation for the whole world?”  A death is not a pledge.  Are peace and reconciliation God’s goals in a world full of sin and evil?  Perhaps first He wants faith and obedience.

I would imagine those killed might hope someone would pledge to defeat ISIS through military campaigns, because they know first-hand that it would bring peace and safety for others like themselves.  Most people brave and faithful enough to die for the name of Christ also know what peace really entails.

The Eucharist, he said, “sanctifies us, purifies us and unites us in a marvellous communion with God. In that way we learn that the Eucharist is not a prize for the good, but strength for the weak; for sinners it is pardon; it is the viaticum that helps us move forward, to walk.”

Does the Eucharist purify us?  What if we aren’t repentant?  What if we haven’t made a good Confession?  What good Catholic would consider the Eucharist his ‘prize’ anyway?  Why does the Pope employ strawmen?

Is the Eucharist pardon for the sinner?  Are the Last Rites administered without Confession?  Holy Communion is certainly a manifestation of God’s Mercy since He comes to us and heals us, giving us strength.  But it’s dangerous, particularly now, to give the impression that Communion is a time for forgiveness of sins.  That is what happens for the repentant sinner during Confession. Then, purified through the mercy of God and his Church, the good person can be strengthened and healed by union with Our Lord Himself.

Union with God entails a certain effort on our part, because God is holy.