The horrible sight of John Boehner bawling and Jo Biden pretending to hold back tears when Francis spoke to Congress, just a day before Boehner himself was finally deposed as GOP Speaker of the House, will be forever etched in my mind.
Since the moment Francis walked on the balcony I’ve been convinced he was an Obama-Pope. Some cardinals claim to have done it. Some say it was the banks, which were effectively nationalized when the president took office. It’s obvious to me that whatever world powers were capable of toppling a faithful sitting Pope after several hundred years would of course have their own Pope in mind to replace him. What would be the point, if you just got another Catholic Pope? Benedict seemed to think that would happen when he abdicated. Was it wishful thinking or just baloney?
And Francis seemed primed and ready to make the Church a willing stooge of the Left, a shepherd of souls of course – just leading them right into the statist tank where they can stay ignorant of the faith, reject the Sacraments, rot morally, then go to Hell. The problem is he can only go so far so fast because he’s the Pope. He can be Obama’s Pope, but it’s hard to actually be an Obama-Pope.
The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue has some reaction to the fact that Pope Francis met secretly with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed briefly for refusing to sign gay marriage certificates. No one seemed to be aware of this meeting with the Pope himself at the time, and the Vatican refused to openly confirm it happened, but nevertheless the FrancisMessage got out. Now the new false Catholic Right is gloating and the FrancisChurch leftists are angry that the Pope seems to care about religious freedom even the face of gay fascism.
Donohue’s message to the Left is, “Of course the Pope is Catholic and you were fools to think otherwise. Stop expecting the Synod to automatically do your gay bidding now.” But both of his assertions are misleading. The Pope does not demonstrate Catholicism. He demonstrates Liberation Theology, a sort of bewildering Communist Protestantism. Sometimes he does Catholic things. Sometimes he says Catholic things. That’s what Protestantism is. It’s Christian, sometimes.
Secondly, there’s no reason to expect something Catholic from the Synod. When the dirty deed is done, people like Donohue will either be silent, or spin it into victory. That, unfortunately, is their new job.
Spinning is key to FrancisChurch since it is almost entirely hype. Who can say what the numbers were for the American FrancisPilgrimages? From what I can tell, the entire Philadelphia event was a flop. Even at the planning stages, there were complaints of scads of unwanted tickets and unmade reservations while the press continued on about the millions who would descend. Obama-State security shut down the city for something that could have easily been managed. People were furious.
Now the mayor is yelling and throwing blame around. His entire constituency lost a bundle in business. They feel used, and they were. The painfully obsequious Archbishop Chaput declared the moment, “very successful,” and touted numbers of 900,000 visitors. They had been anticipating well over a million. They actually got something between 80,000 and 140,000. People don’t come out to see Francis really. They just don’t.
But there is certainly a lot of fawning and FrancisWorship. There’s plenty of that. There are countless celebrities who praise, but of course it’s their job to praise things that keep their acts in business. Aretha Franklin, the tremendous singer who turned Gospel music into pop, said Pope Francis embodied the themes of her signature song, “Respect.” That song is about sex but nevertheless. It’s rumored she earned $200,000 for that papal event and basically ignored the Pope. She even stood right in front of him, blocking him with her back while she sang Amazing Grace.
There’s much more FrancisWorship though, among bishops. Almost immediately they came out of the woodwork from all around the world to pay homage to the Spirit of God acting through ‘him,’ and chided us about his new gospel of global warming, illegal immigration, poverty programs, and pacifism in the face of Muslim terror. After the U.S. trip, Canada’s notorious Fr. Rosica said we’d all seen “not only the shadow of Peter, but God’s power working in him…Many of us, including this writer and priest, have been healed.” Poor Archbishop Kurtz, current head of the USCCB, seemed to stumble when he commented, “Five days that felt like five weeks; that’s how beautiful it was.”
I actually think that was almost honest.
While the ‘humble one’ tells arms-makers they’re going to Hell and every parish to take in Syrians, he of course, is protected by an elite guard. He jets around the planet creating carbon dioxide, then appears briefly in a Fiat. He never stops crying about the poor, something entirely repugnant to hard-working poor people everywhere, then gets served veal and lobster salad, and plenty of it.
What is the result of all this? Well, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you’ll hear in the press, but everything to do with human nature. Francis is repulsive to people, almost as repulsive, unfortunately as what goes for Catholic Mass is to most normal men and women. I mean repulsive not in the sense of disgusting, but in repellent. He repels people, pushes them off and out. Even Francis knows his popularity is trumped-up. He witnesses his attendance figures in person.
In the end, back to Boehner and Bill Donohue’s telling use of the word, “base” to describe these new believers in the FrancisGospel.
The true Catholic press of course folded almost immediately when Francis walked out on the balcony. The latest inglorious example is the once-faithful now arrogant, FirstThings. Now there’s great pressure among such outlets to create a new political alignment within the Catholic world, where ‘conservatives’ are now these FrancisLiberals who go for all kinds of silly, unjust and destructive causes because the Pope does, but stay true to what remaining Catholic principles the Pope has. In this new alignment, actual conservatives are just far-right nuts with no hold on the reality of FrancisPlanet, and those Donohue calls ‘the Pope’s base’ are just flat out liberals.
The problem is, and the FrancisVisit figures demonstrate it, that this realignment will never reflect reality. Just as the Obamacare/Planned Parenthood-funding GOP never reflected the Republican voter in the era of Boehner; FrancisChurch will never move faithful Catholics. If the world powers-that-be in the reign of Obama have created a Pope in Francis, then he’s not the Obama-Pope. He’s the Boehner-Pope. His Church will only pretend to be Catholic like Congress pretends to have principles, and the people will reject the ugly spectacle no matter what the hype.
ObamaWorld hasn’t made the Church it’s own. That’s not possible. They’ve just neutralized it by installing a figure who will negate it’s power to save and heal. The real Church will continue to die since it’s being smothered.
Rosica may worship and Aretha may dance, but no Christian pilgrims will come out for FrancisChurch.
“Um, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
It seems to me that, up until recently, we could count on the Vatican press people to demonstrate the kind of integrity and honesty you might expect from the center of the Christian world. In some ways they were an example to others. Today they spin like the White House.
Why must they treat the Pope’s meeting with Kim Davis the same way they treat his emotional meetings with transsexuals and his supposed phone calls where he tells people in second marriages to go to Holy Communion?
Do they see any difference between these individuals, or are they just engaging in political dialogue with polar ‘extremes?’ Do they have any sense whatsoever of Christian teaching and witness, or are they just ashamed?
At Catholic World Report:
Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican (and founding editor of Catholic World Report), has just posted a detailed description of a meeting alleged to have taken place between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed earlier this month for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
UPDATE: Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, SJ told Reuters that he would neither confirm nor deny that the meeting took place, and that there will be no further statements.
The Catholic Right is going to jump up and down about this. “Oh my gosh! Francis did something Catholic” (in secret). “Hearsay has it that he thanked a woman who refused to help the state confirm gay couples as spouses and heads of families! Davis says it happened but Francis and the Vatican are silent” (silenced?)
It’s interesting the two actually got together. Pope Francis and Davis don’t really have that much in common, do they?