Francis the Merciful

The Dictator Pope was in a merciful mood.

The kerfuffle between the Vatican and the Diocese of Ahiara in Nigeria looks to be over. Francis the Merciful, resolved the situation when he accepted the resignation of the rejected Bp. Peter Ebere Okpaleke and decided not to proceed with his promised canonical sanctions against the priests of the diocese.  He did however offer them a stern warning to never again repeat such unreasonable actions opposing a bishop legitimately appointed by the Supreme Pontiff!  After much bad press — ranging from lying about evidence of sex crimes in the Novus Ordo church to the betrayal of Catholics in China — here’s Francis throwing his opponents a bone and letting them claim a small victory.  See he really is a good guy!  We at Call Me Jorge... suspect that Francis could care less about Benedict XVI’s appointee, Bp. Okpaleke, because now he’ll get to give the diocese to one of his representatives of revolution.

• His Exc. Msgr. Okpaleke's Letter of resignation (in English)
• His Exc. Msgr. Okpaleke's Letter to the Episcopal Conference (in English)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to the President of the Episcopal Conference (in English)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to the President of the Episcopal Conference (in Italian)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to His Exc. Msgr. Okpaleke (in English)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to His Exc. Msgr. Okpaleke (in Italian)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to His Exc Card. Onaiyekan (in English)
• Letter of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to His Exc Card. Onaiyekan (in Italian)

Related:

• The ‘Year of Mercy’ is over!

More Opus (Ju)Dei propaganda to 

rebuild Francis’ faltering image

Look! Francis is a normal humble guy!

The ‘Year of Mercy’ is over!

On May 31st, Francis issued a letter through his Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, asking for the cardinals to inform Francis “by way of the Secretariat of State, the period of their absence from Rome and the address of their stay” because it’s “tradition”.  Is someone fearful of a coup d’etat?

(translation of letter)

DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS

From the Vatican, May 31, 2017

N. 122/2017

Your Eminence,

A noble tradition has always led the Fellow Cardinals residing "in Urbe" to inform the Holy Father, by way of the Secretariat of State, the period of their absence from Rome and the address of their stay.

Pope Francis has recently requested of the Dean of the Cardinalatial College to fraternally remind each single Cardinal the opportunity of keeping that practice, even more so in the case of an extended absence from Rome.

From my part, I gladly fulfill this venerable assignment, assured of the fullest consideration that it will be given.

Finally, I take the opportunity to greet you in the Lord and wish you all the best.

+ Angelo Card. Sodano

___________

To the Eminent Lord Cardinals

resident in Rome

On June 8th, Francis had a private audience audience with a delegation from the Nigerian Diocese of Ahiara. Francis said he was “deeply saddened” by the refusal of the diocese to accept the bishop appointed for them, Peter Ebere Okpaleke, who was appointed to Ahiara by Benedict XVI in 2012. Here’s Francis’ full statement:

Words of the Francis to the members of the delegation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ahiara (June 8), 06/10/2017

I cordially greet the delegation and thank you for coming from Nigeria in a spirit of pilgrimage.

For me, this meeting is a consolation Because I am deeply saddened by the events of the Church in Ahiara.

In fact, the Church (and excuse the wording) is like a widow for having the Bishop Prevented from coming to the Diocese. Many times I have thought about the parable of the murderous tenants, of which the Gospel speaks (cf. Mt 21: 33-44), That want to grasp the inheritance. In this current situation the Diocese of Ahiara is without the bridegroom, has lost her fertility and can not bear fruit. Whoever was opposed to Bishop Okpaleke taking possession of the Diocese wants to destroy the Church. This is forbidden; perhaps he does not realize it, but the Church is suffering as well as the People of God Within her. The Pope can not be indifferent.

I know very well the events That sono stati dragging on for years and I am thankful for the great patience of the attitude of Bishop, indeed the holy patience Demonstrated by him. I listened and reflected much, even about the Possibility of suppressing the Diocese, but then I thought That the Church is a mother and can not abandon her many children. I feel great sorrow for Those priests who are being manipulated from abroad and even from outside the Diocese.

That I think, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord. The Church is a mother and whoever offends her commits a mortal sin, it's very serious. However, I Decided not to suppress the Diocese. Instead, I wish to give some indications That Are to be Communicated to all: first of all it must be said That the Pope is deeply saddened. Therefore, I ask That every priest or ecclesiastic incardinated in the Diocese of Ahiara, there Whether he resides or works elsewhere, even abroad, write a letter addressed to me in cui he asks for forgiveness; all must write individually and personally. We all must share this common sorrow.

In the letter

1.  Clearly one must manifest total obedience to the Pope, and

2.  whoever writes must be willing to accept the Bishop-whom the Pope sends and has appointed.

3.  The letter must be sent Within 30 days, from today to July 9th, 2017. Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose His current office.

This Seems very hard, but why must the Pope do this? Because the people of God are scandalized. Jesus reminds us That whoever causes scandal must suffer the Consequences. Maybe someone Has Been manipulated without having full awareness of the wound inflicted upon the ecclesial communion.

To you brothers and sisters, I would like to express my sincere thanks for your presence; And Also to Cardinal Onaiyekan For His patience and to Bishop Okpaleke, Whose patience and humility I admire. Thank you all.

[00905-EN.01] [Original text: Italian]

[B0403-XX.01]

source: Vatican, Parole del Franciscus ai Membri della Delegazione della Diocesi di Ahiara (8 giugno), 10.06.2017

See, Francis can act all ‘papal’ 

and 

‘traditional’ when it suits him!

Bp. Fellay, “Francis is all mixed up”

excerpt from the Conference given by Bp. Fellay

8 October 2016 — Port-Marly, France

(underlines are ours for emphasis)

Moreover, with what the pope is doing, there have been protests by cardinals on moral questions, on the question of marriage, on the question of communion for divorced-and-remarried persons. A certain number of them have clearly and openly said that they refuse, declaring: “No, that will not be done.” Then there are the African bishops, who have clearly said that there is no question of giving communion to divorced-and-remarried persons. This is a reaction that is saying no to the supreme authority. Which we have been doing for fifty years. This is becoming extremely interesting. We are no longer the only ones.

Then some people say: “Careful! Careful! If you make an agreement, afterwards they will silence you.” But that is passé! That’s over! There are others who are talking. We are no longer the only ones. We no longer have a monopoly on protests. They are not very numerous, but this number is increasing. And then, from time to time, I receive letters. Like this one: I will read it to you in English because it is an image: “Stick to your guns. Always stick to your guns.” This means: Keep your hands on your revolvers. Hold them firmly. In other words: “Defend yourselves. Always. And refuse to compromise in these matters that do not really pertain to the substance of the faith: religious liberty, ecumenism, dialogue with non-Christian religions. There are many of us in the hierarchy who think and believe in what you are doing about these questions.” It is a bishop who wrote that to me. He does not write “I”, he writes that there are many of “us”. He wrote other things too that I dare not read to you, they are so laudatory, but here is the gist: “We need voices that tell us the limits of our freedom in those areas.” He says that the Church, which teaches the truth, is now lost in the gray areas, in vagueness. “Come to our aid.” And also: “Do not let go of anything, continue like this, we need it!” This is new! There was nothing like this before! The bishops used to tell us: obviously there are problems, but at the end of the day…. And here they are telling us: “Resist, we need it!” Actually they do not speak too loud because they know very well that if they do, they will be cutting off their own heads.

But they are working silently, they are working to reestablish the old Mass, like one archbishop who told me: “I have a generation of priests that is lost. You can’t do anything with them. What do I do, then? I take care of the young ones.” And he gave me two criteria: priestly formation in theology is the Summa of Saint Thomas, and in spirituality, in liturgy, it is the old Mass. I am not telling you their names because we do not want to burn out these prelates, but there are several of them. I discover some, just like that, by surprise, and there are a certain number of them! And these are young bishops! And some of them were appointed by Pope Francis! He is not just appointing bad ones! He is all mixed up, like his whole attitude, which has also increased the general confusion. But it is extremely interesting to see that there is this movement, and I am certain that it will no longer stop. Why? Because these bishops see where the truth is, and they will not give in. They are annoyed, they are cornered, because they are in the system, but they will no longer give in. Just like these priests who have discovered the old Mass, they will do all that they can, they are annoyed, cornered, but they will keep it. These are skirmishes that have been won.

The new FSSPX logo?

Mark Shea was right Elton John is preaching the 'gospel'

...of Francis!!!

It's only a matter of time until Dwight repents, gives up his

sinful ways, dresses like a man, and acts like one as well!

Back in 2014 on October 31st, Mark Shea used his column, (see, Elton John greatly admires Pope Francis) to chastise those scandalized by the growing admiration for Francis by all sorts of malcontents and degenerates.  Shea wrote Francis was just going onto,

“highways and byways and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame so that the wedding feast will be full.” 

Are you kidding Mr. Shea?  Actions like this from Francis who said,

“proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.”

Shea finished his column with this

“Will those attracted to Francis’ beautiful witness and obvious holiness need to repent of things? Of course. Don’t we all? But here’s the thing (and the point Francis tried to make last year in his America interview): You don’t start a life of discipleship with a set of moral precepts. You start it by an encounter with a person. The *real* magnetic force in Francis’ life is Jesus Christ. It is for us to introduce a person like Elton John (or whoever) to Jesus so that they can begin to grapple with his astonishing person.”
[...]
“–and why Francis is so very obviously a model for how we *should* be thinking about evangelism.” 

So what message has Sir Elton John been spreading in the media?

BBC Radio interviews Elton John

— excerpts of 5 November 2015 BBC Radio interview of Elton John —

On African bishops opposing changing the doctrine of the church concerning — sodomy — one of the sins which cries out to heaven

“Keep going, keep pushing it. Change is very hard, especially within the Catholic Church, you don’t get things done immediately, you’re not going to persuade people, but you know change is just about keep going and keep going and suddenly in the end the wall will fall but he's got an enormous task. I don't envy him his job.  I think he’s on our side.”

Elton's not a Catholic but he would love to meet Francis 

“I would love to meet him. I’m not a Catholic but from the first day he was elected he tried to bring a new message and tried change the Church and bring it into the 21st century. And he said this should be an inclusive Church. And for me that was a good message for him to bring.  It was a message of hope and it was a message of change and I think in the 21st century we need some change from the church, every church and we need hope and I think he's a man  that passionately believes that this is a good message to bring.”

It appears to us at Call Me Jorge... that Francis and Sir Elton Hercules John are on the same team. The team which has perverted God's promise to Noé by usurping the rainbow as their emblem to symbolize their sinful ways.


Related: 

• Birds of feather flock together

• sodomite Elton John is a fan of Francis!

the circus at the Vatican

We have to disagree with the kosher approved super-reporter extraordinaire, John Allen, even if it is only in a matter of degrees.  The Synod isn't like a soap opera but is a circus just like the Novus Ordo church.  Which tent do you want to be a part of?

Synod is more and more like a soap opera

by John Allen, Jr., 16 October 2014

ROME – Every day, the 2014 Synod of Bishops on the family, a summit of 260 bishops and other participants convened by Pope Francis, seems more and more like a daytime soap opera. Today brought more surprising turns on multiple fronts.

For one thing, the bishops made the unprecedented decision to release internal reports of small group discussions about a working document released Monday that became a sensation due to its positive language about same-sex unions, couples who live together outside of marriage, and others in “irregular” situations.

The reports photograph a vigorous debate within a divided synod, with one camp seemingly embracing a more positive vision of situations that fall outside the boundaries of official Catholic doctrine, and another clearly alarmed about going soft.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, one of the leaders of the moderate camp, today compared the situation in the synod in which a mother says “watch out, be careful,” and the father says “no, that’s fine, go ahead.”

In part, the decision to release the reports was probably a response to accusations that a policy of not providing individual speeches bishops had given earlier in the synod was intended to suppress conservatives who don’t support the line believed to be favored by Pope Francis.

Also today, the Vatican released a slightly modified English translation of the report from Monday which softened its language on gays; for instance, changing “welcoming” homosexuals to “providing for” them, and saying their unions can provide “valuable support” for partners rather than “precious support.”

Paradoxically, however, the Vatican also insisted that the Italian version is the definitive one, where the word accoglienza, meaning “welcome,” remains.

On a different front, Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church used his speech in the synod today to take a shot at the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, basically telling them to stop complaining about Russian foreign policy and the support for Russian incursions in Ukraine voiced by Russian Orthodox leaders.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York was sufficiently outraged that be grabbed Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Greek Catholic Church, who was also in the synod hall, and immediately taped a segment for his radio show in New York to object to Hilarion’s rhetoric.

Outside the synod, things were no less interesting.

In an interview with Rome-based journalist Edwin Pentin, Cardinal Walter Kasper, renowned as the champion of the permissive camp on the question of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to take Communion, said that African bishops at the synod “should not tell us too much what we have to do.”

Kasper later disassociated himself from the comments.

The emergence of the Africans has been one of the more intriguing bits of subtext to the 2014 synod. The fact that they tend to be conservative on matters of sexual morality, especially gay relationships, is no surprise; what has raised eyebrows has been the forceful way they’ve been inserting themselves into the conversation.

After Pope Francis named a six-member editorial committee to shape the synod’s final document, for instance, Africans objected that he hadn’t included anyone from the continent. (Naturally, conspiracy theorists saw this as part of the plot to muzzle the conservative voice.)

Today the Vatican announced that the pope had added Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa to the group, along with Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, Australia. Two days ago, Napier told a Vatican briefing that it “is not true” the entire synod stood behind the message delivered in Monday’s document.

One cardinal speaking on background today said that the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, the Africans weren’t much involved in the discussion. Now, he said, they’ve come of age and are making sure their voice is heard.

In other words, the fault lines at the 2014 synod don’t just run left/right, but also north/south.

Each one of these twists probably deserves its own commentary, but for now here are three general observations.

First, tune in Saturday evening to see what happens with the final document the bishops are slated to vote on, paragraph by paragraph.

Given the divisions that have surfaced — which Francesco Miano, one of the laity in the synod, today phrased as a tension between truth and mercy — it’s virtually certain that some of the daring language from Monday’s interim report will be tweaked, more citations of Church teaching will be inserted, and a stronger focus on sin and the negative elements of certain relationships will emerge.

The drama is whether after all of that is done, the basic message of outreach and — even though the term has been redacted in English — welcome expressed in Monday’s document will still be there.

A cardinal put the question this way today: “Is the synod going to end up being more hesitant than the pope?”

Two, on the keenly debated issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried, it’s abundantly clear that there is no consensus one way or the other, and so the final document seems likely to call for further study rather than making a verdict.

Even that, however, would arguably mark a breakthrough of sorts for the reform position, given that the concluding document of the last synod specifically devoted to the family, in 1980, confirmed the existing rule “founded on Sacred Scripture, of not admitting the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion.”

That document was titled Familiaris Consortio, and was issued by Pope John Paul II. It was confirmed again in a letter from the Vatican’s doctrinal office in 1994, signed by the future Pope Benedict XVI.

Third, it will be fascinating to watch what bishops do over the next year, in the run-up to the larger Synod of Bishops on the family called by Pope Francis for October 2015.

Some will undoubtedly use the synod’s final document as a basis for open debate on the issues raised, without any pre-determined idea of how they should be resolved. Others, however, may well use the following 12 months to marshal their forces to bolster the positions they support, much as happened during the periods between sessions of Vatican II.

Next year, coincidentally, will mark the 50th anniversary of the closing of Vatican II in 1965. In many ways, the experience of this synod and what’s likely to happen from here is as close as the Church has come in the period sense to living some of the same drama.

Whether that’s a welcome development or something to rue, of course, depends on one’s point of view.

The Circus Show never ends with Francis!