My principal purpose in visiting Buenos Aires is to learn about its not-so-favorite son, Jorge Bergoglio, who still hasn’t visited Argentina since becoming Pope Francis. During my first few days here, I asked every Catholic I met to explain that anomaly. I got some blunt and brutal answers.
“We all know he is a son of a bitch,” said a former prosecutor to me. “We are ashamed of him. He represents our worst qualities.”
His friend chipped in that Catholics consider Francis “to be a fake, a make-believe pope,” not to mention, he added, an uncultured, ill-mannered flake.
The former prosecutor oozed contempt for Francis: “He knows nothing — not morals, not theology, not history. Nothing. Only power interests him.”
The description of Pope Francis as a power-mad ideologue is very widespread, I am finding. I spoke at length with Antonio Caponnetto, who is the Argentine author of several books on Pope Francis. “At seminary, his classmates called him ‘Machiavelli,’ ” he noted.
Caponnetto gives two reasons for why the pope has avoided his home country: one, at least half the country hates him, and two, Francis dislikes the supposedly “conservative,” pro-capitalist Macri regime. The latter reason is absurd: Macri is hardly conservative, as Argentine conservatives are the first to say.
On Wednesday morning, I visited with Santiago Estrada, Argentina’s former ambassador to the Holy See. He has been close to Bergoglio for decades, but he allowed that Bergoglio “hates businessmen.” He dislikes Macri, he said, not because Macri is a pillar of conservatism but because Macri is simply not as anti-business “as the pope.” Estrada was loath to criticize his friend, but he conceded that the pope’s promotion of molesting bishops has been “inexplicable.”
Why Pope Francis Hasn’t Visited Argentina, The American Spectator, 22 August 2019 (Bold is CMJ's for emphasis.)
Wonders never cease, nor does the stupidity which exits from the mouth of Francis. In his address to the Delegation of the Forum of Family Associations in Clementine Hall, Francis gave the advice that, “Love is like making pasta: every day.” The context which he said this in can be seen here but in essence what Francis was saying is that: men should be men, women should be women, and they should help each other in this; and that family is a good sacrifice. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? There is much more to be said about Francis’ speech but that will save for another day and another post.
Rome, Italy, Jun 16, 2016 / 02:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Thursday that the great majority of sacramental marriages today are not valid, because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment.
“We live in a culture of the provisional,” the Pope said in impromptu remarks June 16. After addressing the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral congress, he held a question-and-answer session.
A layman asked about the “crisis of marriage” and how Catholics can help educate youth in love, help them learn about sacramental marriage, and help them overcome “their resistance, delusions and fears.”
The Pope answered from his own experience.
“I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said ‘I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years.’ It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,” he said.
“It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.”
He spoke of his encounter with a woman in Buenos Aires who “reproached” him. She said that priests study for the priesthood for years and can get permission to leave the priesthood to marry and have a family. For the laity, this woman said, “we have to do the sacrament for our entire lives, and indissolubly, to us laity they give four (marriage preparation) conferences, and this is for our entire life.”
Pope Francis said that marriage preparation is a problem, and that marital problems are also linked to social situations surrounding weddings.
He recounted his encounter with a man engaged to be married who was looking for a church that would complement his fiancée’s dress and would not be far from a restaurant.
“It’s social issue, and how do we change this? I don’t know,” the Pope said.
He noted that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires he had prohibited marriages in the case of “shotgun weddings” where the prospective bride was pregnant. He did this on the grounds there was a question of the spouses’ free consent to marry.
“Maybe they love each other, and I’ve seen there are beautiful cases where, after two or three years they got married,” he said. “And I saw them entering the church, father, mother and child in hand. But they knew well (what) they did.”
Pope Francis attributed the marriage crisis to people who “don’t know what the sacrament is” and don’t know “the beauty of the sacrament.”
“They don’t know that it’s indissoluble, they don’t know that it’s for your entire life. It’s hard,” the Pope said.
He added that a majority of couples attending marriage prep courses in Argentina typically cohabitated.
“They prefer to cohabitate, and this is a challenge, a task. Not to ask ‘why don’t you marry?’ No, to accompany, to wait, and to help them to mature, help fidelity to mature.”
He said that in Argentina’s northeast countryside, couples have a child and live together. They have a civil wedding when the child goes to school, and when they become grandparents they “get married religiously.”
“It’s a superstition, because marriage frightens the husband. It’s a superstition we have to overcome,” the Pope said. “I’ve seen a lot of fidelity in these cohabitations, and I am sure that this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because of their fidelity, but there are local superstitions, etc.”
“Marriage is the most difficult area of pastoral work,” he said.
Dear reader, did you catch all that? Most marriages are invalid because couples don’t understand their wedding vows however don’t fret that as Francis also said many cohabitations are true marriages! So much for sacramental theology! Fornication is now marriage! White is black and black is white, what was virtue is now sin and sin is now a virtue. Just remember when this fool opens his mouth it’s magisterium!
“I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear. ”
The modernist, Rev. Antonio Spadaro, whom has interviewed Francis more than once and written a book, La mia porta è sempre aperta (My Door is always Open), about these conversations offers his insights in to who Francis is and what makes his pontificate. He singles out five characteristics of Francis’ reign and explains each of them. They are:
— A pontificate of discernment and «incomplete thought» — A pontificate of tension between spirit and institution — A pontificate of frontier and challenges — A pontificate for a Church, «field hospital» — A pontificate of geopolitical impact
What is interesting is here is a Jesuit, Spadaro (often referred to as a Jesuit’s Jesuit), justifying even excusing his fellow Jesuit’s un-Catholic behaviors and concluding that none of this is really planned. Do these revolutionaries really tell themselves the lie that they are on a mission from God as they destroy Catholic tradition? Or are these men so filled with hubris they no longer care about Our Lord nor fear Him? If Antonio Spadaro had wanted to be accurate he would have started the blog entry with this:
— A pontificate where the jaw is always in movement
...and proceeded from there. Alas, he did not.
The post is still an insightful one as the reader can see glimpses of the insanity of a modernist,
