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Church Politics Political Theater The Synod on the Family was a Machiavellian maneuver to change the Church now and for a generation or more. But to recognize that, we need to understand the shortcomings of Pope Francis and his lieutenants, and be ready to see where he’s trying to take the debate BY ROGER A. MCCAFFREY “Times are changing and we Christians must change continually.” —POPE FRANCIS “Our future is our past.” —ARCHBISHOP MARCEL LEFEBVRE It isn’t possible to read, carefully, the best Church reporting of the past two years without developing nausea. We now behold a Church in disarray that not three years ago was bathed in Bavarian tranquillity. Today we see, and I have met, heartsick top “conservative” Churchmen, gamely repeating age-old Catholic teaching on marriage and the Sacraments, over-against an ascendant and confident liberal group promoting attitudes that would nullify millennia of Christian practice. The liberals’ deception: because theirs are “attitude-shifts”—which Francis insists we “must” undertake “continuously,” “changing with the times”—rather than doctrinal, then there’s “No Change in Doctrine.” Good enough for your average chump in the pew. The man who empowered and inspired these liberals: the first Jesuit pope, Jorge Bergoglio. He has long expressed irritation with colleagues he says are “obsessed” with teachings. To close the Synod he added fresh 86 castigation—why don’t we just call it castration?—of the doctrinal conservatives in an unprecedented condemnation of “closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings.” He has excoriated Synod conservatives, in homilies at his Masses, for their strict adherence to traditional Catholic teachings—the very mission Christ solemnly entrusted to Peter and the apostles, and a habit that had earned many of these same prelates praise and encouragement from Francis’s predecessors. A few weeks after the Synod, he actually told a Lutheran woman longing to get permission from the pontiff to receive Communion at Catholic Masses, “I ask myself and I don’t know how to respond...it is not my competence.” “I’ve never been so discouraged about the prospects for the Church,” confessed one eminent Catholic figure during a chat a few weeks ago. “I had hoped that John Paul and Benedict had begun to put an end to the crisis.” He admitted that in his darkest moments he entertained thoughts of the End Times. And, he added disturbingly, “the fact is that the gay lobby has never been more active here than it is today.” We were sitting in the Vatican.
Church Politics ■ by Roger A. McCaffrey Given my source, his methodical approach to matters, and his stature in synodal proceedings, this was a stunning way to start one of my days. But he had more to say: “There is no doubt in my mind that Pope Benedict XVI was pressured to resign.” With these words, carefully chosen, he throws into question the very basis of the election of Jorge Bergoglio. I didn’t take him to suggest invalidity, but rather to suggest a tainted election of Francis. I said that Benedict told a German friend of mine that he felt like he was dying and could not govern, hence his resignation. At this, the prelate noted, “He’s fine now. When you go to see him he’s alert, sound mind, no cane, even ῾jumps’ out of his seat to get up, one that is lower than the couch over there.” Yet in the rare photos of the ex-pope, usually when he’s meeting with the new one, Ratzinger looks fragile, dottering. And on a cane. My interlocutor will probably participate in the next conclave. It is on his mind already. He provided insight into significant events before the 2013 conclave. “In the consistory in the days before the last conclave, there was disaffection.” He expected—in fact he told a friend in 2012, before Ratzinger spoke of resigning, “any new conclave will be chaotic.” In that he was half right. Team Bergoglio blew out the conservative opposition—centered around a weak Northern Italian who made much of his overtures to Islam—in four ballots. On the balcony an hour later, the new pontiff gave his opponents the proverbial elbow, overthrowing various hallowed customs, most notably (to this observer) placing his closest leftwing Cardinal-allies beside him, regardless of rank. The first of many insults. But let’s step back for a moment. Much of the bitterness lighting up Catholic conservatives centers around two theologically leftist Germans, Cardinals Walter Kasper and Reinhard Marx, advanced ostentatiously by Pope Francis over two years, who have lead the full-throated charge for change. Thanks to the Holy Father they had plenty of reserves: he stacked the Synod by eliminating a dozen of the stoutest conservative prelates between last year’s Synod rehearsal and this year’s main event—and replacing them with liberals like Chicago’s new archbishop, Blaise Cupich, who is searching for the secret formula to enable gays to receive Holy Communion. Several men of standing in the field of ethics or canon law or dogmatics were not asked in. American Cardinal Raymond Burke is but one example. Watch Burke in the months ahead. This consummate team player and man of the Church has been driven to the periphery, and is the point-man now for the doctrinal conservatives who never saw themselves as anything other than Catholic without adjectives. This was exactly the position of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre after Vatican II. Suddenly after Pope Paul’s liturgical revolution the French prelate was “the traditionalist,” blamed for being divisive. The injection of raw Church politics into what should been a sedate proceeding that re-stated Catholic moral teachings is pure Argentinian populism, opines a Uruguayan priest with friends in Buenos Aires. But leftist too, says my friend. Peronism blended with Catholic theological liberalism. In fact, it was the pope who singled out, as his theological inspiration, in his first public speech, Kasper, a retired Vatican official and former secretary to Hans Kung, often accused of heresy and disciplined by Pope John Paul II, no disciplinarian. • • • The upshot of the Synod on the Family in Rome: It has nothing to do with the family—or with the exercise of synodal “collegiality.” It’s about who will exercise power in the Church for the next 40 to 50 years. The changes in Church practice feared by conservatives have already taken place. Relaxation of marriage annulment procedures was enshrined this summer by Pope Francis, before the Synod that was supposed to guide him on this matter had even begun. This end-run stunned the conservative opposition, which, characteristically, said next to nothing, saving (it would have been argued by them in frantic emails and phone calls) their ammunition for the Synod. Journalists and commentators preparing all year for the great Synod battle could hardly be expected to reverse course and declare it over. The same is true for conservative prelates. But the battle all but ended with Pope Bergoglio’s streamlined annulment procedures. For that matter, any ideas about incorporating practicing homosexuals into the life of the parish or, indeed, about giving Holy Communion to them or to re-married divorcees, were implanted into the 2014 pre-Synod proceedings, as Edward Pentin documents in his E-book, “Rigged,” and published. For good measure, the pope early this year encouraged official photos of himself with a transvestite “couple” who had been invited by Francis to his Casa. He also gave a photo-op during his U.S. trip to his old friend the homosexual student, now with his “spouse.” Special Edition ■ 87
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Neil McCaffrey is Against Papolatry
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Getting Real Against Papolatry Febr
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War Talk Questions for the Boots Br
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Church Leftism Climate Claptrap Sub
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Romanticizing Poverty Laudato Si’
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Q & A Buchanan on Politics and the
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Q & A ■ Raymond Arroyo’s Interv
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Argentines the country would have a
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Plain Truth Sodomy and the Constitu
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Government had no authority to pass
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A back door to communion ■ by Bis
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Q & A In Defense of Tradition Last
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Q & A ■ An Interview with Cardina
Page 37 and 38: Q & A ■ An Interview with Cardina
Page 39 and 40: Orthodoxy and Spirituality The Sile
Page 41 and 42: Orthodoxy and Spirituality ■ by C
Page 43 and 44: Beyond the Pablum ■ by Neil McCaf
Page 45 and 46: Fine Sermons Remembering the Ember
Page 47 and 48: Fine Sermons ■ by Fr. Richard G.
Page 49 and 50: Fine Sermons ■ by Fr. Richard G.
Page 51 and 52: Orthodoxy and Spirituality The Glor
Page 53 and 54: Orthodoxy and Spirituality Switchin
Page 55 and 56: Orthodoxy and Spirituality ■ an I
Page 57 and 58: Reconsideration ■ by Michael Davi
Page 65 and 66: Pope Francis The Pope in the United
Page 67 and 68: End Times? The “Spirit of Satan
Page 69 and 70: End Times? ■ An Interview with Bi
Page 77 and 78: Papal Politics ■ By George Neumay
Page 79 and 80: Papal Politics ■ By George Neumay
Page 81 and 82: Heart & Soul ■ by Martin Mosebach
Page 87: Heart & Soul ■ by Martin Mosebach
Page 91 and 92: Church Politics ■ by Roger A. McC
Page 93 and 94: ■ Continued from page 91 … when
Page 95 and 96: “The priest has no need for permi
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