In an Analysis with a Misleading Title, ETWN's NCR Warms up to Pope Francis

The usually #AntiPopeFrancis #EWTN/#NCR we dubbed part of the #NewPharisees, just published a misleadingly titled piece; Clashing Visions of #VaticanII Define Present-Day Theological Fault Lines. In a previous piece we noted Crux’s Sr Editor John L. Allen Jr. either does not understand the Church or was deliberately misrepresenting here in his article Pope Francis does not understand America. Allen wrote in part: “It’s said of the pope that he doesn’t understand the United States, and that what he does get, he doesn’t especially like. Many of his bishops’ appointments seem deliberately calculated to upset the dominant ethos of the American church, and some of his policy decisions also seem designed to challenge certain aspects of the American Catholic experience.”Allen does not understand that the American Church is a member of the body The Church is not a democracy. The American Church needs to understand its place in the Catholic Church. 1 Corinthians 10:17 says “And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body.”

 

Image: Stained glass, depiction Christ appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and showing her His Sacred Heart | St. Francis Xavier Basilica, Vincennes, IN

We also noted that The Catholic Media aka New Pharisees – along with its acolytes, would have persecuted Pope Francis 2000 Years Ago, Along With Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Jesus. They dislike that Pope Francis did not spike the ball when SCOTUS overturned Roe V Wade, as if it was an earthly victory like the Super Bowl. They dislike that Pope Francis offered communion to so-called devout Catholics Joseph Biden & Nancy Pelosi. They love to report on disobedient priests and hail them as heroes. The implied premise is that the Holy Spirt is no longer active in the Vatican


If the Catholic Media is waging a wart on Pope Francis, what can you expect from the seculars? The phrase "everyone's a comedian" doesn't mean that everyone is hilarious. It means that everyone thinks they're. Just like the phrase "everybody is a Pope." People may think they can do a better job than Pope Francis. Take for instance NY Post's Maureen Callahan who opines that the Pope's "slam of selfish pet parents proves he never owned a pet.' Or National Catholic Reporter's Flora Tang who frequently criticizes Pope Francis and writes that "Pope's comments are about more than pets. They reinforce the church's narrow view on reproduction and marriage."


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And to say that the National Catholic Register is unhappy with Pope Francis appointment of new cardinals is an understatement. NCR does not like that Pope Francis did not nominate a cardinal for Kyiv to appease Russia: "Pope Francis has repeatedly refused to elevate Archbishop Shevchuk out of presumed deference to the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, which would prefer that the Ukrainian Catholic Church did not exist. Not creating Archbishop Shevchuk a cardinal not only undermines protestations of Vatican support for Ukrainian Catholics, but also gives the impression that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow holds a kind of veto over internal Catholic life in the so-called “Russian world." it writes. NCR would have preferred Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles over Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, "characterized by veteran Vatican correspondent John Allen as “one of the staunchest liberals in the U.S. bishops’ conference.” NCR reasons that "passing over Archbishop Gomez — head of the largest archdiocese in the United States — for one of his suffragan bishops is an exquisitely calibrated message. That Bishop McElroy has publicly clashed with Archbishop Gomez over pro-abortion Catholic politicians is not irrelevant to his selection. Archbishop Gomez, a gracious and dignified man, will conduct himself with customary reserve in the face of what many of his brother bishops — off the record — regard as shabby treatment.

So we were pleasantly surprised that in this new analysis, although it seems designed to promote two books, one by Father Blake Britton, a priest of the Diocese of Orlando, Florida, Reclaiming Vatican II and Shaun Blanchard, a theologian and senior research fellow at the Newman Institute, the Traditionalist Paradigm. In this piece, the author and Father Britton dare criticize the Traditionalists, although they might not have the Catholic Media in mind.

Blanchard's analogy included in this analysis makes my point about the title of the piece: Blanchard is quoted as saying: “The dad in the house is talking about how great last year’s Christmas was, and there are some uncles that don’t agree with that. They’re going to speak up much louder now that dad is speaking that way.” Of course the dad refers to the Holy Father and those who speak up in public are disobedient officials or priests. The Theological Fault Lines then are more like a family discussion as opposed to the implied imminent possibility of an ecclesiastical earthquake;

Father Britton is spot on; " “If Christ is alive, everything is going to be fine. Keep praying, discerning with an open heart, and let’s moved forward in a spirit of hope.

Forget the Liturgy Wars - It's The Media's War On Pope Francis

Image: Stained glass, depiction Christ appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and showing her His Sacred Heart | St. Francis Xavier Basilica, Vincennes, IN

Crux's Sr Editor John L. Allen Jr. Writes that Pope Francis does not understand America.  Allen writes in part: "It’s said of the pope that he doesn’t understand the United States, and that what he does get, he doesn’t especially like. Many of his bishops’ appointments seem deliberately calculated to upset the dominant ethos of the American church, and some of his policy decisions also seem designed to challenge certain aspects of the American Catholic experience." Allen appears to not understand the Church or deliberately misrepresenting her to advance his agenda - The onus is not on the Pope to understand the American Church, but for the American Church to understand its place in the Catholic Church The Church is Catholic. 1 Corinthians 10:17 says "And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body."

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practices the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium of the church

Meanwhile, W. Joseph DeReuil opines that "the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last month dealt a significant blow to legalized abortion, a social evil that the U.S. bishops have reaffirmed as recently as 2020 is a “preeminent threat to human life and dignity” in American society. But the response by some Catholic entities, including some Vatican officials, has been relatively muted. They have used the opportunity to highlight gun violence, the death penalty and other social ills rather than stressing the evil of abortion." The Reuil is not alone. Many others, including Carl DeMarco in his piece titled No Comment: Pope Francis Remains Silent On Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision? raised the same question, as I did, initially. The answer to Reuil et al's question is found in the piece Understanding Pope Francis “No Comment” on RvW SCOTUS Decision

ETWN NCRs Larry Chapp takes it even farther. He characterizes Pope Francis Desiderio desideravi as a big Nothing Burger, whereas Will Wright wrote in his easy titled: What You Should Know About Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter on The Liturgy – Desiderio Desideravi writes “Pope Francis begins this beautiful and relatively short reflection on the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Sacred Liturgy by reminding us of the Most Holy Trinity’s love for us and desire for us.” Edward Pentin in his piece Vatican Inconsistencies: A Tale of Two Bishops, which is merely recycled news expresses his discontent with Pope Francis selection of new Cardinals.

These are not just random hit pieces and it's now just about liturgy wars.  More like the media's war on Pope Francis continues. 

Desiderio desideravi: TGTN or HCE?

ETWN NCRs Larry Chapp Claims that "One could make a strong case that the ecclesiology of Vatican II, and not the liturgy, is the real target of the most recent document from Pope Francis....However, one could make a strong case that the ecclesiology of Vatican II, and not the liturgy, is the real target here. Indeed, the Pope himself explicitly makes this claim in Desiderio when he says, concerning the current liturgical debates: It would be trivial to read the tensions, unfortunately present around the celebration, as a simple divergence between different tastes concerning a particular ritual form. The problematic is primarily ecclesiological” (31).  Desiderio desideravi is Pope Francis’ 2022 document on the Sacred Liurgy.  The titled is derived from the Latin version of Luke 22:15: “I have earnestly desired (desiderio desideravi) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” Chapp goes on to say that in Desiderio, the Holy Father wallows in the never never nebulosities of open ended possibilities: ".. a big nothing burger. As beautiful as the text is in many places, there is also a sense one gets that the text is talking “around” the central issues without really resolving anything. Desiderio is proposed as a purely admonitory meditation on some broad theological themes and never seems to land anywhere concrete in a way that actually matters." An apparently Chapp's reasoning for looking at Desiderio as a big nothing burger is because Pope Francis does not include an "or else" clause in the algorithm and concludes that "Therefore, one is perhaps justified in concluding that the Pope is more interested in suppressing the old liturgy than he is in cleaning up abuses in the current one. "

My own interpretation after my first reading of Desiderio is not only the beautiful text but also a reminder of  1 Corinthians 1:27:  God chooses the foolish things to confound the wise. I need to read Desiderio a few more times to make sure I fully understand it.  Fortunately Will Wright wrote an easy to read summary titled:  What You Should Know About Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter on The Liturgy – Desiderio Desideravi.  Wright's summary reads very much like my first reading of Desiderio:   "Pope Francis begins this beautiful and relatively short reflection on the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Sacred Liturgy by reminding us of the Most Holy Trinity’s love for us and desire for us."  Wright summary includes this passage:  "The key to understanding Pope Francis’ document is worth quoting at length:

“With this letter I simply want to invite the whole Church to rediscover, to safeguard, and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration. I want the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the Church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue. The priestly prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper that all may be one (Jn 17:21) judges every one of our divisions around the Bread broken, around the sacrament of mercy, the sign of unity, the bond of charity (DD, 16).” POPE FRANCIS

and concludes "He ends with a vital exhortation that every Catholic of good will in the Roman Rite needs to hear: “Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Let us safeguard our communion. Let us continue to be astonished at the beauty of the Liturgy (DD, 65)."

Comparing Chapp's commentary to Will Wright's summary is like comparing two views of the same coin:  "There goes the neighborhood" versus "Here come everybody"  The first statement comes from syndicated columnist Art Buchwald, Son of the Great Society (1967): "When the flying saucers were sighted over Ann Arbor, Mich., a few weeks ago, the first reaction from one of the residents was, "Dammit, there goes the neighborhood." Feb 29, 2012. Whereas “Here Comes Everybody” is the nickname given to the character at the center of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, HCE. Officially, the initials stand for Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, but he earns the nickname on account of his size, and it’s underscored in the complicated flux of attributes and the universal, anyman-quality of HCE throughout the novel. The connection reveals itself to be a clever insight by Joyce: “Catholic means ‘Here Comes Everybody.

Today's Homily by Father McCarren based on Lk 10:38-42 emphasized the HCE argument: As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Father McCarren emphasized that the Church is big enough for Mary and Martha. For liberals, progressives and conservatives. Father's advice" Follow the Rule of St. Benedict:  Listen,