{"id":5208,"date":"2015-09-08T15:46:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T19:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=5208"},"modified":"2015-09-09T16:09:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T20:09:50","slug":"washington-post-defends-underdog-francischurch-from-unknown-catholic-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=5208","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post Defends Underdog FrancisChurch From Unknown Catholic Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FrancisChurch<\/a>

Vulnerable FrancisChurch defender at risk from ‘conservative’ attack<\/p><\/div>\n

The Washington Post is seeing things<\/a>.<\/p>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2014<\/span> On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his elaborately upholstered armchair and appeared to issue a warning to Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

A staunch conservative and Vatican bureaucrat, Burke had been demoted by the pope a few months earlier, but it did not take the fight out of him. Francis had been backing a more inclusive era, giving space to progressive voices on divorced Catholics as well as gays and lesbians. In front of the camera, Burke said he would \u201cresist\u201d liberal changes \u2014 and seemed to caution Francis about the limits of his authority. \u201cOne must be very attentive regarding the power of the pope,\u201d Burke told the French news crew.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To call Cardinal Burke, or any other faithful Catholic ‘conservative’ is simply a slur.\u00a0 We aren’t in love with old things. We just don’t run with the popular pack, afraid, or over the cliff with the herd of swine.\u00a0 We stand on the eternal Rock of Truth.<\/p>\n

Papal power, Burke warned, \u201cis not absolute.\u201d He added, \u201cThe pope does not have the power to change teaching [or] doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s words belied a growing sense of alarm among strict conservatives, exposing what is fast emerging as a culture war over Francis\u2019s papacy and the powerful hierarchy that governs the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is last year’s revolt.\u00a0 The post is replaying the 2014 Synod, trying to gin up a sense of repeated resistance before this year’s attack.\u00a0 But where has Cardinal Burke been the past several months?\u00a0 What has happened to that faithful front?\u00a0 They’ll be watching for Edward Pentin this time, and Michael Voris has placed himself under restriction.<\/p>\n

They’ve also knotted up all the rules <\/a>so that working groups have absolutely no means of open communication either with the outside or with each other.\u00a0 Did you think they were going to repent their thuggish tactics and become Christian gentlemen this year?\u00a0 Synod 2015 is designed so that no Synod father will obstruct the ‘holy spirit’ and his frightening surprises.<\/p>\n

This month, Francis makes his first trip to the United States at a time when his progressive allies are hailing him as a revolutionary, a man who only last week broadened the power of priests to forgive women who commit what Catholic teachings call the \u201cmortal sin\u201d of abortion during his newly declared \u201cyear of mercy\u201d starting in December. On Sunday, he called for \u201cevery\u201d Catholic parish in Europe to offer shelter to one refugee family from the thousands of asylum seekers risking all to escape war-torn Syria and other pockets of conflict and poverty.<\/p>\n

Yet as he upends church convention, Francis also is grappling with a conservative backlash to the liberal momentum building inside the church. In more than a dozen interviews, including with seven senior church officials, insiders say the change has left the hierarchy more polarized over the direction of the church than at any point since the great papal reformers of the 1960s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read ‘destroyers.’<\/p>\n

The conservative rebellion is taking on many guises \u2014 in public comments, yes, but also in the rising popularity of conservative Catholic Web sites promoting Francis dissenters; books and promotional materials backed by conservative clerics seeking to counter the liberal trend; and leaks to the news media, aimed at Vatican reformers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is a ‘FrancisDissenter’ an actual dissenter?<\/p>\n

What websites do they reference here?\u00a0 The mainline faithful Catholic press retains a very thin slice of its old glory.\u00a0 They are for the most part FrancisApologists and cheerleaders.\u00a0 They have even become pitiful sycophantic environmentalists<\/a>.\u00a0 It would be better just to link to a cover page that reads: “Nothing to see here, just some fearful chiselers trying to hold onto their jobs in the era of ObamaChurch.”<\/p>\n

No.\u00a0 The rising popularity is in what used to be called ‘traditionalist’ Catholic media.\u00a0 In FrancisChurch the faithful flock has been hewn right down the middle.\u00a0 One side has gone ‘Voris,’ and left intellectual honesty behind to chase money and visibility.\u00a0 The rest have been tarred as freaks who love long red dresses.<\/p>\n

But those freaks are just Catholics.\u00a0 LifeSiteNews, 1Peter5, The Remnant, our site PewSitter, and a host of learned and passionate writers from the Catholic and secular worlds remain to fight.\u00a0 The non-specific Post may be referring to these.<\/p>\n

In his recent comments, Burke was also merely stating fact. Despite the vast powers of the pope, church doctrine serves as a kind of constitution. And for liberal reformers, the bruising theological pushback by conservatives is complicating efforts to translate the pope\u2019s transformative style into tangible changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good!<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least we aren\u2019t poisoning each other\u2019s chalices anymore,\u201d said the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, a liberal British priest and Francis ally appointed to an influential Vatican post in May. Radcliffe said he welcomed open debate, even critical dissent within the church. But he professed himself as being \u201cafraid\u201d of \u201csome of what we\u2019re seeing\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A poisoned chalice is one taken unworthily, ‘Father.’\u00a0 If you’re so afraid of these dangerous Catholics perhaps you should register a micro-aggression complaint and enforce some kind of ‘safe space.’\u00a0 After all, there’s nothing organic about the church to which you belong.\u00a0 It’s already dead and dying, but the true Faith only grows.\u00a0 It must be forcibly smothered and suppressed by men like you and their secular masters so that the ‘awful horror’ can go on ‘standing in the place where it should not be.’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post is seeing things. VATICAN CITY \u2014 On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[365,19,680,96,679],"class_list":["post-5208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conservatives","tag-pope-francis","tag-radcliffe","tag-synod","tag-wapo"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5208"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5313,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5208\/revisions\/5313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}