“Sure, you liked Francis so you supported him, Shea. But what are you gonna do if they elect somebody you regard as a Christ-denying idiot and coward, a snob who folds on the basics of the Faith when the pressure is on?”
You may not realize it, but you just described the first Pope. In answer to your question, I will stand with St. Peter anyway because Christ made him the Pope. I love that Peter is a dunce, a coward, and a snob–in a word, a man. Because he gives me hope that if he can be saved, even I can be saved.
Also, I don’t “support” the Pope. He’s not my Congressional representative in the People’s Parliamentary Democracy of Heaven. He is my Papa and my Shepherd and my Teacher. He supports me, not least by correcting me when I am a dunce, a coward, and a snob. The idea that the Pope’s job is to toe my line is absurd. He is there to teach the Tradition (something Francis did very faithfully while the MAGA sect utterly whored itself to a dimestore antichrist). And it is a dogma of the Faith that the Spirit will not permit the Pope to define as doctrine anything that is not the Tradition, just as it is a dogma of the faith that the Church will not be allowed to abandon or reject that Tradition (though, of course, as the MAGA cult illustrates abundantly, members of the Body of Christ can and have done so since the beginning). In short, I believe in the infallibility of the Church (and therefore of the Pope) and in the indefectibility of the Church.
So whoever the Church, under the guidance and protection of the Spirit, chooses to be Pope, I will listen to and learn from the Tradition he teaches, not because I think him smart or competent or brave or saintly (Peter was none of these things) but because I believe in the Holy Spirit, who is the soul of the Church and who does not call the qualified but who qualifies the called.
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20 Responses
Catholics should be wary of attaching themselves to any politician. To engage in a cult like movement led by an obvious sociopath, is foolishness to put it mildly. No politician is “God’s anointed” and to actually believe that is pathological.
Evangelicals who have gotten in bed with this sorry man have disgraced themselves. They have made a Devil’s bargain, and someday, it will be time to pay.
Everyone has their bugbears. Some are greater, some are lesser. In case of Francis
1. Amoris laetitia and the associated dubia is an interesting case. For some it was just a tool to unseat Francis. To others it was lamentable because it would result in at least some of the flock being released from their control over their pelvic issues.
But I completely fail to grasp why some conservatives didn’t embrace it with open arms. Considering how many of them are divorced with no good reason and how many have abandoned their spouses, shouldn’t they just take its usefulness to them since it would free their conscience from the guilt over that abandonment?
Nevertheless, the critics of Francis took it upon themselves to be the voice of those abandoned spouses who stayed faithful to the Catholic teaching and never remarried regardless of how much discomfort, difficulty or outright harm it caused them. One would expect some of them to come forward and talk about their experiences, but there was no massive organized opposition to Amoris laetitia from those who should ostensibly feel betrayed, and I’ve heard more of them being genuinely happy that at least others in the most difficult situations won’t have to feel torn by resorting to condemning their families to poverty.
At least the authors of the dubia had the decency to not pretend to care but rather appealed to disembodied idealism.
2. Laudato si’ is obviously contentious because it deals with the environment. That alone is enough for hardened business mogul types to roundly denounce it.
3. Especially in the latter years of his pontificate, in his repeated and unqualified condemnation of abortion, Francis apparently stunned a number of conservative types and garnered critics in the left who labeled him a traitor of left ideals and a false friend.
4. It was easy to ascribe Francis’s early attempts at brokering peace between Ukraine and Russia to political advisors he did trust (Soviet Union invested plenty of resources towards historical, economic and political sciences in South America, while USA is viewed as constant meddlers), because some of the language used put undue onus of the invasion on the invaded Ukrainians.
But that would be gross oversimplification, because even though the language did parrot the most mendacious Russian talking points (NATO barking at Russia’s borders), it was in the hope of at least approaching the actual dog with hopes of placating it and getting it to listen because it might hope to be listened to. And that’s because peace is always preferable to war.
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Now, there are some bugbears that a future pope is definitely going to face, but anyone expecting a short papacy would do well to remember that the pontificate of Benedict XVI was “supposed to” be short, quiet and passive, and it was anything but.
Those who equate MAGA with absolute evil would probably be appalled if the next pope makes concessions to US Republicans or even actively pursues them. Sure, the pope might be a sympathizer, but he might also be trying to approach them (and other forms of post-Christian nationalism in Europe) to provide a chance for dialogue.
On the other side of the pew, if the ban on non-abortifacient contraceptives is lifted, some would consider it a betrayal of doctrines of the Church, others would see it as proof that Humanae Vitae was too conservative and sticking to it for so long was some form of wanting to exert too much control over pelvic issues.
(That latter one used to be a particular bugbear of mine, but I hope I’m over it now.)
The vast majority of the laity ignored HV. The smarter Priests and Bishops know this and avoided the topic. HV was a mistake. Time to admit it and move on.
The vast majority of the laity ignore difficult teachings because we don’t feel like obeying them, not because those teachings are wrong. For those who did better than me and obeyed in spite of great difficulties, God bless them. I hope they get a great reward in Heaven. I do not want to be jealous of them. I thank God for the mercy and forgiveness I receive from Him that I know I don’t deserve.
Really? What then? Stick to Casti connubii (Pius XI, 1930) and Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession (Pius XII, 1951) when it comes to sexual morality?
Humanae Vitae was a necessary foundation on which John Paul II (as Cdl. Wojtyła) developed his Theology of the Body.
Overall, I think HV was not a mistake, and the only reason it was ignored was because by 1968, the laity had easy access to information and protested the lack of availability of contraceptives regardless of their long-term effects (physical and mental).
Perhaps it should have stuck to condemnation of abortion as it is actually a prerogative that the Church has. Perhaps it should have been less *categorical* in some statements and allowed the lay to exercise more free conscience. Perhaps this way would have been more a guidance. Perhaps adopting a “wait and see” attitude would have been more prudent. Perhaps this would have resulted in less confusion in light of official teaching deviating from HV. Perhaps it would not have weakened the stance on abortion (as some people insist that since the Church is slowly changing Her position on contraceptives, She will eventually change the position on abortion as well).
But perhaps it was prophetic and it was exactly as categorical as needed.
Wow!
HV sounds very good in theory, but was written by someone who never sat up all night with a sick child. Never changed a diaper, never lived in the real world, experiencing the give and take of marital relations. If you chose to eschew contraception, good for you. But, do not sit in judgement of others who do not.
You think it was Paul VI’s teaching? It’s not. It’s God’s. Plenty of faithful Catholics follow it like they should. They do exactly what you do with the sick kid and all that. What’s your response to them and to God? Don’t pick and choose.
So they have a right to sit in judgement of others? No.
Show me in the Gospels where contraception is forbidden? This is not a fight that you are going to win. Focus on abortion and move on.
Take the beam out of your eye before you look for splinters in others.
I judged nobody. I know perfectly well that it’s not an easy burden. Compared to earlier Church teaching, HV is actually quite liberal, it’s only that expectations were that Church would be completely hands-off and give blanket licence to everything.
As for contraception and the Gospels? It’s anachronistic to expect Jesus to have discussed abortifacient contraception, isn’t it? It’s similar to expecting Jesus to ban creating cars, planes, power tools or killer robots.
But I’ll bite: Matthew 5:18. It is an excellent start to understand that Jesus did not come to strike down ancient Jewish laws and that they have value.
So let’s expound on the law of levirate.
We are not bound by Jewish ritual Law, but we are expected to learn from the inherent order of things that is spelled out in that Law. And if you arbitrarily decide which parts of the Law are to be kept and which aren’t, you can essentially whittle down the Law to strike out all the Commandments too, because why not?
While Christians are not bound by levirate (and while modern Jews do not enforce it), we learn from it that marriage and sexual relations were ordained to one important end (among others): to conceive children.
Tamar is one of the four women in Jesus’s lineage mentioned in the Gospels. Her story is fascinating and since she has been included in the Gospel, we are expected to at least know it. So she was married first to Er, who died before she bore him children, so then she married Onan. And Onan did not want to father a child with Tamar, presumably because that child would legally be the child of Er and the heir of Judah, and Onan would not be able to partake in that inheritance. So he avoided impregnating Tamar by one method known to ancient people, that is withdrawal. Onan was punished with death for this.
There are three possible takeaways from the literal sense: 1) spilling semen is a sin; 2) Avoiding conception is a sin; 3) Avoiding fulfillment of levirate is a sin.
As most scholars agree, the reason why Onan was punished with death was the third one, not fulfilling the law of levirate. The further story, in which Judah eventually impregnates Tamar, confirms that this sense is the foremost one.
What it tells us is that having children is an obligation. Avoiding having children with no grave reason, especially with a selfish reason like Onan presumably had, is a sin. Onan would have been punished even if he simply practiced NFP with Tamar. But that doesn’t mean that the former two senses can be wantonly ignored. Having a valid reason to avoid conception does not give licence to using any possible contraceptive.
You don’t “get to” enjoy “sex without unwanted consequences” just because you ticked the right boxes. Just because a priest may give dispensation to Alice and Bob concerning normally illicit contraceptives doesn’t mean it’s a blanket approval that’s valid for all couples. But if you squint juuuuust hard enough, the situations are juuuuust tangent enough to juuuuust make it licit for Carly and Dan.
You do your thing,I will do mine. I am not shutting up or going away. Deal with it.
Fair enough. Just don’t go around and parrot arguments that are simply false. You’re better than that.
My understanding of the argument of HV is that the purpose of sex is procreation and that deliberately separating them is wrong. I do not think that HV says that having children is an obligation.
You’re right, John, there is no obligation to have children. In cases of some couples, their specific conditions are absolutely grave enough that having just one child is not advisable.
However… getting married and not wanting children at all without a serious enough reason is considered a serious deficiency and the couple may not be in their capacity to enter a valid Catholic marriage.
When Casti connubii was promulgated, natural family planning was in its infancy and “rhythm method” (calendar) was only just published and the Church did not condemn it. It actually embraced it quite readily.
The method is far from perfect, but for the majority of couples, as a family planning method, it is 100% effective (I’m not exaggerating). Its poor record is due to the fact that the minority I mentioned is simply large enough to matter.
But I’ve seen contraceptive advocates claim 10-15% Pearl index (meaning that 80-85% of couples that use the method correctly are expected to get pregnant within a year) which is ridiculous, given that Perl index among healthy couples not using any contraception is about 40%.
After more research into fertility, there are now methods which rival or exceed the pill, and even the most cost intensive one, Marquette, has a lower total cost than the pill.
And the Church still endorses NFP because it was never about breeding an army, fanatical devotion to hyperfecundity or even swelling the number of the faithful. So it was not just grudgingly accepted because the method’s shortcomings and failures would still ensure at least *some* population growth.
If there was an NFP method that would predict fertile and infertile days with 100% accuracy months in advance regardless of any and all other factors, the Church would still endorse it, even if She would warn of the easy cop out and stress to examine the couple’s reasons for delaying conception.
The only thing I think would raise some eyebrows is a method that would allow the woman to somehow delay or accelerate her ovulation to match with planned life events (like wedding and the honeymoon).
Looks like you’ll be safe from having to withstand to the face, Mark, at least for another decade.
So! The first North American/ US Pope. Truly are we now in Morris West/ Robert Harris territory.
I’m guessing the Cardinals couldn’t find an unmarried Catholic male 18 or older named “Dear ‘JD Vance’, Clearly You Bribed Someone Else To Sit Your Theological Knowledge Examination So Your Baptism Is Utterly Null And Wholly Void” to elect, but they picked the nearest available candidate instead.
https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3loogtjrlxs2q
Note to A Guy: one of the more annoying things about Right Wing Catholics is their attitude that they are somehow entitled to judge others and manage other people’s sex lives. No. Mind your own business. Don’t pontificate on other people’s personal lives.
A lot of Catholics politely listen and then do something else when right wing busybodies prattle about contraception. I will not politely listen. I will challenge.
I have not judged you. You’re the one being judgmental. You’re judging yourself and you judged me and decided I’m a “Right Wing Catholic” just because I touched upon your particular bugbear that you have with HV proscription against contraception.
Are you a right wing Catholic who worships Donald Trump? If so, reasoned debate is useless with psychosis.
Are you seriously asking me this question? Did you ever see any of my comments supporting Trump or MAGA? Do you even think I’m American in the first place?
And yet you’re out there judging me… and now diagnosing me as psychotic.