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.

 

 

 

 

 

When the EPA Creates Catholic Doctrine, All Must Obey

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FrancisChurch 'catholics' will obey the new morality for you.

FrancisChurch ‘catholics’ obey the new morality for you.

It’s important to remember that when we talk about the new FrancisGospel – so beloved by anti-Catholic technocrats and communists, and it’s dream of FrancisTopia, it would be a gross mistake to think its new moral code will be in any way voluntary.  I know, right and wrong, as they have been revealed to us by God and his saints, should be something we can generally choose, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.

World leaders have a “moral obligation” to fight climate change, and top Obama aides are making good on that obligation with its climate rule for power plants, two administration officials write in a new blog post.

Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy and Ambassador to the Vatican Ken Hackett wrote Monday that the EPA’s carbon rule fits with Pope Francis’s moral call to action on climate change released last month.

“He makes clear our moral obligation to prevent climate impacts that threaten God’s creation, especially for those most vulnerable,” McCarthy and Hackett wrote in the post on the EPA’s blog and The Huffington Post.

The officials lay out various harms of climate change, such as the effects of higher sea levels on the island nation of Tuvalu and increased extreme weather throughout the world.

“For all these reasons, the U.S. government, through the EPA, is taking steps to make good on our moral obligation,” they wrote. “Later this summer, the agency will finalize a rule to curb the carbon pollution fueling climate change from our nation’s largest source — power plants.”

See?  It’s just morality.  The EPA chief even helped Pope Francis write an encyclical to make it actual Church teaching.  No big deal.  Now an EPA rule is a Catholic Church rule for all time, yes?

Don’t like the sound of all this?  Don’t worry.  McCarthy and Ambassador Hackett are both ‘Catholic’ so it’s all internal and within the fold, so to speak.

McCarthy, a Catholic, has highlighted Francis’s encyclical in recent weeks to promote the carbon rules, which will seek a 30-percent cut in the power sector’s carbon by 2030.

She also traveled to Vatican City in January to meet with top church officials and discuss Francis’s encyclical and administration officials’ work on climate, including the power plant rules.

Get used to this.  Before it’s all over the only people left who don’t hate our new FrancisChurch will be mid-level government bureaucrats scrambling for position, Hollywood stars, Jesuits, and a few gay people.

 

 

 

 

 

Enemies Lay ‘Communist Jesus’ Trap for Francis!

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Wait a minute, Evo. Something's not right.

Wait a minute, Evo. Something’s not right.

In all that happens during these rough seas of FrancisChurch the most frightening is the disconnect between the balance of events and their interpretations from people you trust.  We look at our Church, the foundation of our lives and our souls and our hope for eternity, and we find before us a field of weeds and thistles. Thistles are impossible, and there are 32 of them in the Pope Francis news today but alas, there’s one daisy.  So now we must hear how we are in a field of daisies and those thistles exist mainly in our maladjusted, paranoid, angry and overwrought heads?

That’s the worst part of FrancisChurch.  It’s not the betrayals so much as the painful confusion they produce.  Don’t be fooled or denigrated.  Those are thistles out there and you’re not crazy.

Fr. Z sees a trap in the revealing photobomb of Pope Francis receiving an ugly Communist crucifix from his friend, the leftist dictator of Bolivia.

Don’t you think if Jesus felt is was necessary to be hung on a hammer and sickle He would have done so?  Is the cross not meaningful enough already the way it is?  Where did this ridiculous idea emerge to paste a Corpus onto Communism and call it Catholic?

A little tempest has been stirred around the “gifts” (aka traps) that Bolivian Pres. Morales gave to Pope Francis during his 4 hour stop in La Paz.

Morales, a socialist who dedicated his last election to Chavez and Castro, gave the Pope a “crucifix” in the form of a hammer and sickle as well as a small pectoral “cross” with the same design.

No, Jesus was not crucified on a hammer and sickle.  The hammer drove the nails and the sickle went through His heart.  Father reminds us that the thing almost looks like another over-modified cross, the swastika.  I’m sure the Devil likes this gift for the Pope (except for the Jesus part).

The Pope certainly has nice friends!  Oh, but they have some good things in common, yes?  There are daisies.  You know the common good, income equality, and the ‘just distribution of resources?’  It’s all part of the Catholic tradition, see.

Gifts at these meetings of heads of state are worked out ahead of time. So what gives with this?

Alas, the Pope put on the damn pectoral “cross” thing, which is a little hard to understand.  I have a theory about that, below, but only a persistent grilling of Fr. Lombardi has the potential of producing the authentic explanation.

In any event, and this is what we have to pay attention to, when the Pope saw the “crucifix” (much larger than the little pectoral “cross”) he said, “No está bien eso… That’s not right.”

I’m glad that happened and I agree with Francis.  It’s not right, Evo.  It’s jumping the shark to show the world a stupid crucifix like that while I’m making this monumental effort to convince them that Eco-Communism is Catholicism.  They’re not gonna buy that thing too!  Thanks for the Commie Christ necklace and the bag of coca leaves, but you’re screwing up here.  Give this back to me later.  (Except he seems to have accepted it.)

By the way, Fr. Longenecker has a theory why the press seems to be laying low while Francis trolls through banana republics on his full-bore Liberation Theology tour.  They figured out Francis is Catholic.  It finally happened.  They were wrong about him all along.  He was never really on their team.  Those bozos.  When are they going to coordinate with each other about these things in advance?  At least we can all relax now, right?

I’m learning so much about the Latin American Church.  It’s a Communist wreck.  You can get away with a ton of trouble if you don’t do it in English.

The conservative/traditional element are predictably blowing arteries at the sight of the Pope with these … things.  I, too, am disturbed.

Well, conservative traditional ‘element,’  though also disturbed Fr. Z is not one of you I suppose?  How did we become an element?  Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were simply ‘faithful?’

Maybe we’re not blowing arteries.  Maybe they’re being sliced.  Perhaps we’re just on the good end of those Beatitudes and emitting the occasional yelp.  Why the harassment from former friends just because of one temporary pseudo-Catholic post-abdication installation and all of its thistles?

Message To The Not-Really-Conservative-Anymore Catholic Literati: There’s Nothing Good Or Catholic About Liberalism And You Know It.  Decide Now In Your Heart.  Are You Liberal, or Are You Faithful?

After all, the hammer and sickle is a symbol of extermination of both human dignity and human beings numbering in tens of millions.  It is a symbol of oppression and degradation of billions that by far outstrips the swastika.

Some will counter, “But Father! But Father! The connection those noble yet humble proletariat crosses of mercy have with the Jesuit priest who was killed in the 1970s outweighs the …!” Blah blah blah.

Can you imagine anyone daring to put something like these into the hands of St. John Paul II?

Times have changed.

Another subtle and powerful Fr. Z point, but changing times don’t make the Church worse.  A worse Church makes changing times.  Father knows this.

Look at the photos and the video.  Francis is clearly unhappy when he saw the large version of what was on the smaller pectoral “cross”.

Could this have been a Pres. Bartlett moment, like the one with the flag of Taiwan?  In The West Wing, Bartlett mistakenly accepts a controversial Taiwanese flag which stirs a hornet’s nest with the PRC on the eve of a state visit.  Bartlett didn’t see the flag (why is another, not relevant, issue).  In this present Bolivian case, Francis might not have noticed the symbol on the small pectoral “cross”, but he reacts sharply – negatively – when he sees the larger version in wood.

I think that Morales move was sheer manipulation and political theater for his commie base in Bolivia.  it was a trap set for Francis to score points. Francis was polite in accepting this “gift/trap”, much as would a kind grandfather when given an inappropriate gift by an errant grandson.

I suspect that we haven’t heard the end of this one.  In the meantime, keep your cool and wait for additional information.

Keep cool and wait until the spin warms up.  This one caught us by surprise.

This is condescension.  Faithful Catholics need steadfast leaders, not insulting calls for calm in the face of attack.  We’re hearing the kinds of things you say to sheep you’re readying for slaughter.  This little daisy of the Pope’s ‘gentle reprimand’ to a Communist is nothing.

Answer these questions:

  • Why is the Pope meeting with Evo Morales?  Does he not know who he is?
  • Why is Pope Francis an apparent friend of Morales, having hosted him a few times, and praised his oppressive rule?
  • Why does the Pope receive a bag a coca leaves, drink coca tea, and honor a coca farmer like Morales?  Does he not know that in addition to bolstering an open Communist he’s also associating himself with the cocaine trade and its killers?
  • Why did the Pope tell Bolivians they have to work for the ‘common good,’ that riches should be distributed?  How do you do that without confiscating them first?
  • Why did Francis say Morales’ social reforms did a good job spreading the wealth around, and that prosperity isn’t material wealth? Why did the Pope spread an untruth?
  • Why did Francis tell the Ecuadoran bishops he laments how their predecessors, who defended the poor from ‘exploiters,’ were branded ‘communists?‘  Why did their fellow citizens call them that?  Because they were nice?  I guess it was just those ‘elites’ talking.
  • Is it possible that Francis’ friend, Evo, was correct to think Francis would like these gifts?  Why did Morales say things are different with Francis, that he helps the ‘liberation of our people?
  • Why did the Communist Morales praise, “My brother Francis, friend of the poor, the Church used to dominate, subjugate, and oppress but now we welcome it with joy?!”

Is all this just being thrown at Francis, while the hapless Vicar of Christ misses it in his naive innocence?  The same might have happened to Benedict, yes?

Finally,

  • Why did Francis stop, pray, and lay flowers at the murder site of Jesuit-Communist, Fr. Luis Espinal, who created that FrancisChurch crucifix, and didn’t know that, “that’s not right?”   Why does the Pope make such people ‘martyrs?’

I could go on but I don’t have to.  There’s will be another field of such daisies tomorrow in this time of mercy.