Rolling Stone Gathers Pope Francis

Final thoughts on the Rolling Stone feature on Pope Francis…

The article attempts to show Francis’ break from the supposedly “conservative” Church of old, in the process remaking Pope Francis as the hero of the liberal left. It uses the scandals of Vatican finance and sexual abuse, coupled with old stories about Opus Dei and the Latin Mass, to fashion Pope Benedict XVI as a “conservative” conniver. In short, Francis is portrayed as the populist leader of a movement to “liberalize” the Catholic Church.

Certainly the article contains a great deal of untruth. Inconvenient facts, like Francis’ theological orthodoxy, are ignored. Rolling Stone draws arbitrary conclusions from selected illustrations drawn from the Pope’s life. Why would this pop cultural icon do this?

Easy. Sexual and social relativists wish to refashion Christianity such that they may claim Christ, and his vicar, as their supporters, for their social agenda is more appetizing to people if it complements, rather than competes with, the enduring Christianity history and tradition. In the language of C.S. Lewis, Screwtape has no interest in eradicating Christianity if he can sublimate it to his own purposes. This is a new twist on the traditional view of the Devil’s greatest trick—it isn’t convincing the world he doesn’t exist, but convincing the world that Jesus Christ is the champion of his causes.

Well-formed Catholics in the blogosphere are amply setting down the orthodoxy of Pope Francis. His work on economics, which has sparked media controversy, nevertheless is in keeping with Catholic social teaching since at least Leo XIII. His call for more widespread participation by laity, particularly women, was a matter close to Benedict XVI’s heart. His expressions of charity toward those afflicted with same-sex attraction are deep-seated in the Church’s teaching. For ill-formed Catholics, the media has set the Pope apart from his predecessors by focusing less on substance than misleading sound-bites.

The Rolling Stone piece seems to be successfully refashoning Francis’ public image in the popular culture, which is why it is paramount for the Church (which includes us!) to use the means of social communication to prevent secular media from further hijacking the truth, and to give witness to the truth. Catholic media is important, but a way must also be found to penetrate secular media if in the end the Church is to be successful in this. This highlights Vatican II’s call to holiness for us all—the exhortation to live charitably, joyfully, and boldly in discipleship of Jesus Christ, and commit to the new evangelization.

The promise of the Gospel is that authentic commitment to the truth—and a refusal to separate a commitment to social justice from a commitment to orthodoxy and piety—leads to conversion. What I try to do in these pages, among other things is to use the pop culture’s new-found fascination with the Holy Father for reiterating Vatican II’s call to holiness, which necessitates personal conversion to suffering souls. As the reader may have experienced, one who lives the Gospel, is, (or soon will be) vulnerable to far more than pop-culture persecution. But persecution is a part of the Christian mystery. Fear not. Our Lord has already overcome the pop culture.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

Tucker Carlson: The Biden Scandal Is Real And Not Going Away Posted By Ian Schwartz On Date October 30, 2020 TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: It's been obvious for decades now that the Biden family has gotten rich from selling influence abroad. Joe Biden held a series of high level jobs in the U.S. government. Based on that fact and that fact alone, Biden's son and brother approached foreign governments and companies, sovereign wealth funds, energy conglomerates, Third World oligarchs and dictators, and they offered to exchange favors from Joe Biden for cash. The polite term for that practice is influence-peddling. Sometimes it is legal under American law, sometimes it is not. But it has always been the economic engine of the Biden family. They've never done anything else. Until recently, no one debated this fact. Several liberal news organizations, in fact, have written detailed stories about the Biden secret business dealings over the years. Look them up, assuming you still c...

To Fighting Irish, Francis Spikes the Ball... For the Bishops

I have been commenting here on the recent Rolling Stone article on the Holy Father, who recently hosted the big cheeses from our premier "Catholic" University... Speaking of premier, h ere is the premier blogger on this very topic!

Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt

What Is the Source of This Darkness of Our Times? |Blogs | NCRegister.com : What prompted me to write a book about the current spiritual war ongoing in the world in which we live? Stumbling upon this quote by the Pope of the council, Pope Paul VI : We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties . I am an avid reader of Msgr. Charles Pope, who has written recently on this our adversary in ...

Sr. Cecilia. Ora pro nobis

Who smiles like this at the moment of death? Sister Cecilia, of the Carmel of Santa Fe in Argentina, witnessed to her love for Christ in her struggle with lung cancer Aleteia June 25, 2016 Facebook 4k 12 Death is a tragedy for mortal man, and yet with faith in eternity and anticipation of the embrace of our heavenly Father, death becomes radiant. We share today the news of the death of Sister Cecilia, a Carmelite of Santa Fe in Argentina, who suffered from lung cancer. She astonished those who surrounded her in her agony, as her face was transformed by a tender smile as she closed her eyes to this world. As you can see in the photograph, she looks like a lover who has arrived to the encounter she has long been yearning for. The Carmel of Santa Fe announced the death of Sister Cecilia to their brothers and sisters and friends of the Carmel, with a brief, but profound, note. Dear brothers, sisters and friends: Jesus! Just...

Dancing with Mr. D: Gender Ideology

In a private conversation with Bishop Andreas Laun on January 30 as part of the Austrian bishops’ ad limina visit , Pope Francis strongly condemned “gender ideology.” In so doing he follows the example of Pope Benedict, who is on record as saying that gender ideology is “a negative trend for humankind,” and a “profound falsehood,” which “it is the duty of pastors of the Church” to put the faithful “on guard against.” Bishop Laun The Austrian bishop stated, “In response to my questioning, Pope Francis said, ‘Gender ideology is demonic!’” As I have chronicled on these pages, the Holy Father often refers to the work of the devil. Of gender ideology, Bishop Laun explained that “the core thesis of this sick product of reason is the end result of a radical feminism which the homosexual lobby has made its own.” “It asserts that there are not only Man and Woman, but also other ‘genders’. And furthermore: every person canchoose his or her gender,” he added. “Today,” he said, ...

Divide et Impera

The schema of “liberal” (progressive, left) vs. conservative (traditional, right) which followed upon the close of Vatican II is wholly inadequate for explaining the present-day crisis of faith within the Church of Jesus Christ, though it is most unfortunate that usage of these terms persist among many Catholics and in the media today. Division within Christ’s Church is a clear attack by the evil one. Satan’s strategy here is the time-honored one of divide et impera - divide and conquer . Remember, too, Jesus ’ words to the Pharisees: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.” Quite simply, no ideology, no matter how sincerely embraced, may substitute for personal conversion .

The Dragon would have us think it PEDOPHILIA

In the first chapter of my reflections on the Church in the U.S. since Vatican II I wrote: “…. the moral crisis facing the Church, … is not “pedophilia” but stems from an inordinate amount of active homosexuals as ordained priests and some inattentive bishops who have run interference for them, all the consequences of a failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching”. George Weigel in a piece for National Review has noted this recently, and if one doubts, try and obtain a copy of Fr. Rueda’s The Homosexual Network . It is fascinating reading and will leave the reader flabbergasted. Phillip Jenkins corroborates here . As Fr. Z has summarized in relating Weigel: Most clerical abusers were not pedophiles , that is, men with a chronic and strong sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children . Most of those abused ( 51 percent) were aged eleven to fourteen and 27 percent of victims were fifteen to seventeen ; [78% o...

Legal Insurrection

A Cornell Law professor says there is a coordinated effort' launched against him for criticizing Black Live Matter The conservative professor and media critic who founded the influential website Legal Insurrection wrote that he’s been in an “awkward relationship” with the “overwhelmingly liberal faculty and atmosphere” for years, specifically since his website launched in 2008. Check out his story here .

Search This Blog