Forgive me for beating this wretched horse to death, but for those who can tolerate another, more detailed look at Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga’s speech, wherein he arguably provides an overview of the current pontificate’s vision for the Church, I offer the following.
I recently sent the PDF linked below to my spiritual director, at his request, in order to facilitate future sessions. It is the complete text of the cardinal’s speech, with certain of the more troubling sections in boldface followed by my own commentary in red.
In spite of the “dead horse” euphemism above, the unfortunate truth is that this particular beast is very much alive, and barring some unforeseen change, it sheds a great deal of light on the direction in which the Church will be taken.
I’ve read the Cardinal’s speech and your commentary and I wholeheartedly concur with not only your analysis but also your grave concerns for the ‘hijacking’ of the Church.
On a personal note, these times and this pontificate remind me of this poem.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING
” Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
You highlight the following statement by Maradiaga:
“[The Church’s] foremost goal is to care for the penultimate (hunger, housing, clothing, shoes, health, education…) to be then able to care for the ultimate, those problems that rob us of sleep after work (our finiteness, our solitude before death, the meaning of life, pain, and evil…).”
In this context I note that, when Pope Pius XI apologizes for taking over ten months to publish his first encyclical (Ubi Arcano), among the reasons for delay His Holiness gives the following:
“We were occupied, too, with the almost unbelievable sufferings of those peoples, living in districts far remote from Us, who had been stricken with famine and every kind of calamity. We hastened to send them all the help which Our own straitened circumstances permitted, and did not fail to call upon the whole world to assist Us in this task.”
This encyclical is, of course, Pope Pius’ first on the Social Kingship of Christ.
We await Francis’ Ubi Arcano.
“…if the Lord allows this pope to so lead, there will be a deep division in the Church; priests, bishops and cardinals will be forced to publically resist. It will be terrible, not just for believers, but for the entire world.”
Thanks for posting this frightening vision and your analysis. I have to disagree on just the above point. It seems to me that the Church and world have suffered greatly precisely because of the failure to resist over the past 50 years.
“The new wine of Evangelization cannot be poured into old wineskins.” He is replacing, then, the New Covenant with this post-Christian fantasy called the ‘New Evangilization’ – this had to have come via a memo from satan’s little helpers.
Christ was, correct me if I’m wrong, reffering to the Old Covenant with the ‘old wineskins’ metaphor? As far as I can remember there’s only two convenants, the old – anticipating, readying for the Incarnation of the Messiah, and the new – of the Messiah Who fulfilled the old and established His Church, His Rock. The Holy Roman Catholic Church is the Keeper of the Covenant. Those who prefer a ‘new evangelisation’, to the New Covenant, are not Catholic – they have chosen the world.
Dear Louie. You are quite right that “Vatican II is being treated as a “super-dogma””. It seems at times that the only “heresy” that is recognized by the Church is the “heresy” of denying the “truth” of Vatican II. This is the “heresy” of following tradition.
At the same time Vatican II is never officially recognized as defining new dogma — so how can it be a “heresy” not to accept Vatican II?
I have come to the sad conclusion that this is a diabolical theological game that is being played out. In order to avoid falling into “formal heresy” the “dogmas” of Vatican II are never presented side-by-side with the dogmas of the pre Vatican II Church — which are the official dogma of the Church. The “new modernists” never declare this or that official dogma to be invalid. This would be “formal heresy”. Instead they say that they are simply re-interpreting the existing dogma “in the light of modern times” or some equally non-sensical statement.
This is how the “modern modernists” avoid falling into “formal heresy” which would mean automatic ex-communication.
At the same time, this is there achilles heal and we need to exploit it by placing side-by-side their novo-dogma with the Church’s immutable dogma. And then ask them, “Which do you believe?”. They will of course say that there is no contradiction and they believe both, but it is easy to show how absurd such a position is.
And by the way, Ratzinger’s “hermeneutic of continuity” falls right into this same category.
Yes. It is perfectly fine to deny that outside the church there is no salvation or say that hell is empty but if you say one little thing about vat 2 you are immediately declared a heretic. Mark Shea called me a heretic on facebook because i said the documents were ambiguous.
One thing I’ve noticed with the current Pope and now with Cardinal Maradiaga is that they don’t seem to like pious titles for Our Lord when speaking of Him, such as Our Blessed Lord, Our Savior Jesus Christ, etc. Instead it is Jesus, bandying around His name like the protestants do, as if to say that they are best buds. It is jarring, to say the least.
Gee, you all seem to be a bunch of self-absorbed promethean neopelagians who feel superior to others because you observe certain rules and remain intransigently faithful to a supposed soundness of doctrine. Why don’t you open your doors to the concrete needs of the present time?
Dear Tullius-
Yup-pretty much describes me at least.
Dear Lisamck, so well said!
Upon my conversion, almost beyond my control, I simply could no longer blurt out Our Lord’s name Jesus as you describe, henceforth. It was as if Our Lady was prompting deeper reverence for Our Savior in me and helping me, preventing the abhorrent disregard you describe. Thank you for bringing this up.
Dear Lisamck, Linda,
Interesting about how protestants never use pious titles for Our Blessed Lord, but come to think of it, sounds very much true. In fact, do they even call Him, “Our Lord” thus signifying that He is the true Lord and King of our lives? Another interesting point – it seems a lot of trads are converts from protestantism! It seems as though they cherish and love more the faith they had to find through (I would imagine) emotional and mental turmoil rather than those catholics who were “baby fed” the Catholica faith (although for me personally, even though baptised within the Church, I had to learn the Catholic faith pretty much from scratch on my own).
Viva Cristo Rey!!!
I am a convert but I was never a protestant. I was raised with no faith and not baptized until I became a Catholic. I haven’t noticed that a lot of trads were protestant.
Hi,
Can I post this on my blog?
Regards,
Tradical
Can’t tell whether Tullius is serious or not…his regurgitated talking points put me in the mind of an obamabot repeating white house talking points to defend the latest scandal. If it’s satire; well done! If it’s serious, to what concrete “needs of the present time” might you be referring?…I’ll be REAL interested to see how you think human needs and nature have changed from age to age. (just a little caution…anything you say in defense of this point puts you squarely in the Modernist camp. proceed with caution.)
And a little treat for all of my fellow intransigently faithful neopelagian types…
awesome….
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/12/01/starting-sunday-off-right-3/
more awesome….
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/12/01/crystal-clarity-on-civil-disobedience-and-being-charged-a-seditionist-from-the-pope/
most awesome…
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/11/28/unpacking-the-latest-hot-mess-from-pope-francis/
and just for the SHEER beauty (remarkable science cited…)
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/11/23/the-one-about-the-science-of-the-immaculate-conception-and-assumption-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary/
Dear Edu, I think it might depend on what branch of protestantism a convert comes from. The more conservative the prot, maybe the more conservative the convert? All I know from experience is that my hubby and I were wild-eyed, fundamental Baptists, and now we’re wild-eyed Traditional Catholics. 😉
Pretty sure that Tullius is being ironic. Irony is helpful in times like these! (btw, Tullia is a ancient Roman gens, Tulius being the masculine nomen- a clue that history and tradition might be important to him). ?Verdad, Tulliius?
Irony and humor is very helpful in times like these. It helps to keep one from going insane.