Did Pope Francis authorize same-sex blessings?

This is a very scary development. The pope has issued a statement paving the way for blessing of same-sex couples. Of course, it's not stated as plainly as that and in the details it seems that homosexual relationships continue to be deemed as sinful. However, that's not the impression everyone has and this decision can only lead to yet more confusion. To see the original document, go here.

Technically speaking, it seems there was a question presented to the Church asking whether or not a priest could bless a same-sex couple and the reply was that it's not possible to bless such a union. However, of course, the Church can bless individuals. Behind this blessing is the presupposition that the person in question, even if they are leading a sinful life in some aspect, affirms the Church's teaching and at least desires to follow the Church.

So technically a priest could bless a same-sex couple with the implicit understanding that they recognized the problem with their union and that they would struggle to live according to the Church's doctrines. This is what the pope has been promoting and announcing.

Of course, anyone can see the problem with this. It's very difficult to separate out specifically what is being prayed for. In Germany they are already having lay-led same-sex blessings done in Catholic Churches. Most lay Catholics are not very familiar with Church law and morality to begin with. Many live outside the dictates of the Church. Yet we're supposed to believe that these same people will grasp the subtleties of these particular blessings and understand the nuances: i.e. "We're blessing each member of this union separately to pray that they lead a holy life, and even though they are doing it next to each other and are seemingly being blessed at the same time, this union is not endorsed by the Church, etc."

At this point, it may be best to just ignore Pope Francis. He seems to enjoy causing disorder, division and chaos. I can't tell you his motivations as he hasn't shared them with me. However, the role of the pope is to be a unifying force, someone who is clear on doctrine.

This is something I've thought about recently. Different people within the Church have different roles. Not everyone is meant to be the same. Some people are hard manual laborers, like St. Joseph. Others are intellectuals like St. Thomas Aquinas. Still others are more charismatic, and others are contemplative. You can't say any of these particular gifts or charisms are bad. But I feel that certain roles in the Church need some charisms or qualities more than others.

The pope's primary role is to be a "Rock", like Peter was the Rock upon which Christ built the Church. It's not the job of the "Rock" to question things, throw in monkey wrenches, stretch the limits of acceptability, etc. He has to be a strong unifying force. The pope should also be very clear and solid, not ambiguous and confusing like the current pope.

A good article on this situation can be found here.

The English version of the document issued by the CDF can be found here.

Full Text of Pope Francis's Homily for Pope Benedict's Funeral Mass Celebrated Today

You can find the full text of the homily here: https://aleteia.org/2023/01/05/francis-homily-for-benedicts-funeral-full-text/

Pope creates division in order to combat division

The pope has "doubled down" on quashing the old rite of the Church, as a Yahoo article puts it. Pope Francis had already attacked the traditional Latin Mass and tried to limit its observance. Just a few days ago, he dealt it another blow by making it impossible to set up new Latin Masses and making it ever harder to celebrate sacraments according to the old rite.

The pope's alleged logic for this decision is to reduce division, but what he is doing is nothing but creating division. The old rite is perfectly valid and in fact has a much longer history than the Novus Ordo. Celebrating it would do absolutely nothing to hinder the celebration of the Novus Ordo. The only thing it really ends up doing is creating animosity with traditional Catholics.

I really have no idea how the pope thinks this will reduce division. There is no logic to what he is saying. Celebrating Mass in a particular way has nothing to do with division. The only thing that divides Catholics is whether or not people adhere to the teachings of the Church. If one group is fine with contraception, gay marriage, and disobeying legitimate authority in spiritual matters, and another group follows the Church, that's where there is division.

From my experience traditional Catholics are far more likely to follow Church teaching than people in the Novus Ordo. That's not to say that most Novus Ordo Catholics don't follow Church teaching as well, but adherence is highest among the traditional.

I have no idea what Pope Francis is trying to do to be honest. He's completely all over the place. I rarely ever hear anything about his defending Catholic teaching or explaining it. He seems to be focused on loopholes and bashing traditional Catholics. Very strange behavior. I'm sure traditional Catholics could potentially suffer from certain vices more than the more modern counterparts. Maybe they have a sense of superiority or other issues. But continuously antagonizing them will not solve any of that. Quite frankly, I see the potential issues with traditional Catholics to be much easier to remedy than the issues of those who oppose tradition.

Here's the article from Yahoo. It has errors and seems to be from a mainly non-Catholic point of view, but has some info:

https://news.yahoo.com/pope-doubles-down-quashing-old-110637870.html

Did Pope Francis Causes More Confusion Regarding Mary as Co-Redemptrix?

Pope Francis has once again created controversy and possible division with Catholics today with his off-the-cuff remarks regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary.

When seeking information on this subject, I found out that the pope has several times negatively commented on Mary's titled of Co-Redemptrix. There is an article from December 2019 from Crux, a Catholic publication, titled "Pope calls idea of declaring Mary co-redemptrix ‘foolishness’"

That was over a year ago. Now Pope Francis has made another comment on the subject saying: "Jesus entrusted the entire Church and all the faithful to Mary, but “as a mother. Not as a goddess. Not as a co-redemptrix. As a mother.” (Source: Crux Now)

So, what are we to make of all of this? In doing my research I found that Pope John Paul II spoke favorably of the title "Co-redemptrix", as did some other previous popes. However, Pope Benedict XVI cautioned against its use saying:

"...the formula “Co-redemptrix” departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings. ...Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything she is through Him. The word “Co-redemptrix” would obscure this origin. A correct intention being expressed in the wrong way." (Source: Wikipedia)

Interesting. I get where the nay-sayers are coming from. To many, the term co-redemptrix sounds like Mary and Jesus are equally responsible for our salvation, like they are working together. This is absolutely not Catholic teaching. Catholic theology states that we are saved through Jesus Christ alone, 100%. As Taylor Marshall pointed out today, even saying Jesus did 99.9% and Mary did 0.1% would be heretical.

So what does co-redemptrix mean? In my own terms, it means that Mary participated in a unique way to bring about salvation. In order for Jesus Christ to come into the world, we needed Mary's "yes" or "fiat". She maintained free will and God had specially selected Mary to be the Mother of God. It wasn't as if God would just go from one young woman to another until one said yes. Mary played a pivotal role in Jesus's life, and she is the closest person to Him in heaven. She is the Queen of Heaven.

To be fair to Pope Francis, I think what he is doing is trying to be very clear. I can see this whole issue being a sticking point with non-Catholic Christians and frankly some Catholics as well. Upon first hearing the term "co-redemptrix", it's natural to think of words such as "co-founder" or "co-operation" and see some kind of equality between the parties. So I can see the confusion.

However, I think the pope could do a better job of explaining what the term actually means when traditional and observant Catholics use it. The pope instead made it seem like they were just plain wrong. This is not the right way to treat faithful believers who perhaps use that term. He makes it seem like people who use "co-redemptrix" think that Mary is some kind of divine co-equal goddess, which would the heights of heresy.

I don't like how many of Pope Francis's comments seem to throw traditional Catholics under the bus. As if to say they can defend themselves. It always, to me, comes across as though Pope Francis wants to be liked by everyone except traditionalists.

Dr. Taylor Marshall has a pretty thorough treatment of this subject today. Worth checking out:

Pope's Speeches in Iraq (includes links to transcripts) + Commentary

I could be corrected, but from the small amount of news coverage that I've seen, it seems Pope Francis isn't doing too bad of a job in Iraq. He has said some things which are very good and he is not shying away from controversy.

First of all, I think it's bold and courageous for the pope to even be going to Iraq, given past terrorism there and the threats. Also, it is during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here are some of the things Pope Francis has said during his visit:

March 5, Presidential Palace (full transcript).

“The age-old presence of Christians in this land, and their contributions to the life of the nation, constitute a rich heritage that they wish to continue to place at the service of all,” said Pope Francis.

This is important to note. Many people are unaware of Christianity's past in places like Iraq, Lebanon, etc. long before Muslim invaders came and violently took over. Many popes in fact came from Syria, which is not all that far away.

March 6, St. Joseph's Cathedral (full transcript):

In this speech, the  pope speaks about the virtues of patience, love, kindness. He says the world tells us the mighty and powerful are favored but God says happy are the humble and peacemakers.

March 6, Interreligious Event at Ur (full transcript):

The pope also delivered an interreligious speech at Ur, where Abraham was from. Here is part of what he said:

Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion. We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion; indeed, we are called unambiguously to dispel all misunderstandings. Let us not allow the light of heaven to be overshadowed by the clouds of hatred! Dark clouds of terrorism, war and violence have gathered over this country. All its ethnic and religious communities have suffered.

I am glad the pope specifically talks about extremism and violence and says they have no place in religion. This is definitely a message some people need to hear. Some religious groups actually think violence is a legitimate option when it comes to religion. I have not yet met a Christian who thinks this is the case except perhaps under the condition of strict self-defense.

Strangely, the pope goes on to specifically mention the Yazidi as a group persecuted by Islamic terrorists, but says nothing about Christians, even though Christians were also greatly affected, many were murdered and so on. He is a representative of Christians, not Yazidi. I am not opposed to him mentioning other groups of people, but he should at least mention his own flock.

Other themes of the pontiff's message here at this event were about inclusivity of all people, ensuring the poor have adequate resources, people helping one another. I suppose themes you would expect from this pope.

Unfortunately there seems to be some level of indifferentism in his speech, rarely saying anything specifically about Christianity. Rather, it seems the pope is trying to strike a very conciliatory tone, one of ecumenism. While I don't think the pope should go out of his way to be overly triumphalistic, it can also go too far the other way. Again, he is the representative of Christians, not anyone else.

I thought there was a clip of him specifically mentioning "Islamism" and the threat of violence, but I cannot find in which speech that was contained.

As far as Pope Francis speeches go, these aren't too bad. I'm not saying they are great, but I haven't seen anything he has said that was completely out there. Perhaps I am wrong, and he still has more trip left to go. I don't know what else he has prepared. I wish him good luck on his trip.

Pope Francis: What he's done in 8 years....

It's kind of hard to believe it's been 8 years since Pope Benedict resigned from the papacy. Even to this day, there are conspiracy theories circulating as to his motivation for making such a move. Some say he was forced out by powerful groups within the Church. I haven't read up on these theories enough to make an evaluation of them.

If you theorize that Pope Benedict was forced out and replaced with Pope Francis by globalists looking to further their world-altering agenda, then you could be forgiven for doing so given the many statements made by Pope Francis over the years which seem to approve of the overall leftist agenda. Admittedly, he has not gone completely "globalist", but in many aspects he has.

Among other things, Pope Francis talks constantly about global warming, globalizing the economy and having supranational organizations rule over us, socialism, reducing individual freedom, the evils of capitalism, and so on. Since Covid-19, Pope Francis seems to have made the disease a staple of his pontificate.

In his 8 years as pope, Francis has called out traditional Catholics in many ways, yet he rarely does the same for liberals in the Church. He has told Catholics to stop breeding like rabbits and to "get over" abortion, homosexuality and contraception. He has cracked down on the Traditional Latin Mass. Lucky for us Pope Benedict made it more available, not less.

The current Supreme Pontiff seems obsessed with environmentalism. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be within the context of Catholicism. The Catholic understanding of the topic is that humans are the greatest of God's creation on Earth and that the Earth and her resources are here for our use and growth. The reason we don't pollute unnecessarily or waste things is because is can harm our fellow man, not because of some obligation towards Mother Earth.

The pontiff has gone so far as to condemn air conditioners (Laudato si', para. 55) and has said the world is starting to look like "an immense pile of filth". These weren't off-the-cuff remarks of which he is quite fond, but are found one of his several environmentalism encyclicals.

Although there is plenty of disagreement regarding the proper way to deal with Covid-19 to minimize damage from all angles, Pope Francis decided to write an op-ed in the New York Times in which he praises any and all lockdown protocols and condemns those who disagree as being unconcerned about others. Of course, there cannot be any legitimate disagreement on that topic. You either care about people or your don't.

Pope Francis has become well-known for his airplane interviews in which he says confusing and seemingly unCatholic statements. Sometimes these statements are "clarified" by his entourage, sometimes they are not.

Following the publication of his exhortation Amoris laetitia, a group of 4 prominent cardinals issued what's called a Dubia in which they sought clarification on several points in the encyclical as it related to the reception of communion for people who were civilly divorced and remarried. The pope refused to answer their dubia, even though it was straightforward. According to Wikipedia, some have said that he refused to respond because he wanted to emphasize a more pastoral approach to these issues. This is a nonsensical statement. No matter how "pastoral" one might be, he cannot teach error either by omission or commission in order to do so. It makes no sense.

More recently, the pope has seemed to make veiled negative comments regarding Former President Donald Trump and others seemingly in favor of President Joe Biden.

These are just a tiny fraction of the confusing, unsettling things Pope Francis has done since ascending to the Papal Throne. Has he done anything good? Yes he has. He has spoken out clearly against abortion in many cases. He has spoken against the newfangled gender ideologies going around on leftist campuses. These are good things. But to be honest, these are the minimum things we would expect from the Holy Father.

Let's hope Pope Francis listens to people who only have his best interests at heart. The cardinals who wrote the dubia aren't trying to "trap" him or make him look bad, they are trying to be shepherds to their people. Those who tell the pope that his comments are confusing and controversial aren't doing it to bash him or be hard-hearted, they simply want teachings that make sense and represent the Catholic faith.

In the next 8 years, Pope Francis must listen more to his critics because in general they are the daily Mass-goers, they are the people who are serious about the faith, they want to grow in their relationship with God, and all they are asking for is a Holy Father who reflects this.

Virtue-Signaller-in-Chief Pope Francis Appoints Non-Ordained Woman as Undersecretary of Synod of Bishops

Pope Francis once again attempts to outdo himself on his "wokeness" by appointing a female to be undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops along with voting rights. This is the first time a woman or even an non-ordained person will have voting rights in this institution. Her name is Nathalie Becquart and she is a French Sister.

It seems to me this pope asks two questions when considering making a decision:

1) Is it technically possible?

2) Will it cause controversy for true Catholics and win brownie points from the secular media and those who hate the Church?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, he will do it. The pope is really doing little if anything to protect and defend orthodox Catholicism. Instead, he is trying to appear hip and relevant - probably the last things we need from a pope in this time of confusion.

Isn't the pope supposed to be someone we can rally around rather than being the primary source of confusion and division for the Church, even when including those outside the Church? It's really sad.

So why am I so upset about all of this? Well, many will assume I am anti-woman, that's the standard go-to for those who don't understand Catholic teaching.

That simply is not the case. The truth is there is a basic Catholic understanding called Apostolic Succession, which was instituted by Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. He chose 12 apostles who were men to lead the Church. He could have chosen women as well, but he did not. Then for all the centuries of the Church since then, there has been male-only apostolic succession. All bishops are men because of this.

What Pope Francis is doing is weakening and causing confusion regarding apostolic succession and the male-only priesthood. Is he in direct violation and attempting to ordain women? No, he's not. But he's confusing the teachings of the Church. He is causing scandal. All for what? To score brownie points with his buddies in the secular media? Those people will never be happy. They understand nothing of the structure and history of the Church. They are just "woke" SJWs. Even if there were a female pope, they wouldn't be satisfied. They would want a female "person of color" pope, then someone with a disordered sexuality, and so on. They would never be satisfied.

The pope has said that women need a bigger role in the Church. I don't necessarily disagree with this. They can be researchers and professors and even Doctors of the Church. But I think it becomes a problem when they start taking over roles that were dedicated to bishops. The synods make major decisions regarding the Church and implementation and specification of Church teaching. This is a role proper to bishops.

The pope is either unaware of this or purposely looking to subvert this. He can go on and on writing lovely-sounding speaking points that sound like they were written by Hallmark, but that's not what we need right now. He's all about show. He's all about being in the headlines. He is terrified of being unpopular. These are not the qualities we need from a pope, especially not now in this time of confusion!

Why can't the pope just sit home and take a far more low-key approach. Why is he so thirsty for attention all the time? These are not the characteristics of someone who is qualified to be Supreme Pontiff. My advice to the Holy Father is to stop playing politics, stop trying to be popular, and start bringing together faithful Catholics and teaching the true beauty of the Faith given to us by Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis will be featured in a new documentary by Netflix, yay........

I just can't wait to see what Netflix produces in conjunction with the pope. I mean you have to ask, if Netflix is allowing this documentary, knowing their standards for evaluating things like this, what can we possibly expect?

I don't expect this documentary to provide really any value whatsoever. I hate to say this, really I do. I wish Netflix would produce morally good content, things which could uplift and edify people of faith. But they don't and they have strict policies against anything which appears to disagree with their extremist ideology.

So Pope Francis is teaming up with this outfit. We don't know precisely what this documentary will look like. It's described as:

a documentary series based on "Sharing the Wisdom of Time," a book in which Pope Francis called for creating "an alliance between the young and old people" by sharing their stories.

One very telling part for me was

"The elders chosen for the documentary come from different ethnic groups and religious traditions, according to the Netflix press release, but their stories demonstrate how in every part of the world and in every culture people are concerned with the same issues: "love, struggle, work and dreams." 

Why is Pope Francis promoting other religious traditions? That's not his job. His job is to promote and promulgate the Catholic Faith around the world. That is literally his job. Why does Pope Francis continually try to muddy the waters and create confusion. The Church is universal, but the Church is also missionary. We must reach out to evangelize people.

This will surely just be another confusing, content-free, feel-good, emotional documentary that will offer little value.

Are Covid and Climate Change the Greatest Threats to Christians?

Pope Francis seems to talk endlessly about both Covid and Climate Change. This aligns pretty well with leftist politics. In recent books, editorials, and airplane interviews, the Roman Pontiff has forcefully laid out his moral case for both of these causes. What impression does this leave to outsiders of the Catholic Faith? Is this a good representation of our Faith? I will explore these questions.

In 2015, Pope Francis published his second (of so far three) encyclical called Laudato Si. The first encyclical was actually started by Pope Benedict, so it was not entirely chosen by Pope Francis. In Laudato Si, Pope Francis talks extensively about climate change and the dangers to the planet and people. He uses very strong language, denouncing many things in our modern society including fossil fuels, various types of development and progress, and more. He even gets into the nitty-gritty by denouncing air conditioners. In one part, the pope says:

The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.

Well, it doesn't seem that he is shying away from exaggeration. It seems he truly believes the earth is in a state of total ruin and we are destroying whatever is left of it.

Of course we are called to protect the Earth and not unreasonably destroy it, but the problem is that people are starting to worship the Earth, to see human beings as some kind of intruders. This attitude is diametrically opposed to our Catholic Faith. According to the Faith, human beings are the pinnacle of God's creation on Earth. We take care of the earth not for the sake of the earth as such, but for our own sake and the sake of future generations. It must be a human-centric approach to the environment.

Unfortunately this is not the message that is conveyed by Pope Francis. He has criticized people for having too many children or for trying to use the resources of the Earth to improve their lives. As usual, he creates a very black and white proposition. Either one is opposed to new technology, fossil fuels, or using the Earth's resources or they are bad people. But things aren't so simple.

For one thing, to say the Earth is getting much worse depends on one's perspective. The Earth and the environment are actually getting much better for humanity. How so? Well, the number of people dying from climate-related reasons is dropping dramatically. Because of fossil fuels and advances in technology, people can "weather" the storm of climate events much better than in the past. From a human-centric point of view, things are improving not getting worse.

On top of this, many factors are improving all the time such as air quality, water quality, and overall quality of life. Another important point is that technology advances in a somewhat predictable way, kind of like rungs on a ladder. If you remove rungs, people don't advance to the higher levels faster, they are prevented from ever getting there.

There was significantly more pollution in our environments during the industrial revolution than now. In the third world, many people cook indoors where huge amounts of soot and smoke fill their meagre homes. Forcing them to adopt solar energy before logically moving onto much cleaner forms of fossil fuels prevents millions of people from escaping their tiny smoke-filled hovels and moving into more modern homes. I see this all the time with aid agencies such as UN agencies. They mandate that in order for a poor country to receive aid, they must immediately implement the latest technology. Of course this technology is extremely expensive and so implementation takes very long and few people benefit. Electricity generated using coal may not be super clean, but it's better than cooking with dung or coal inside one's house.

From a human-centric point of view, it is much better to allow a country to progress naturally than to stunt its growth in order to implement ecofascist rules based on the elevation and possibly worship of the Earth.

Another "emergency" that the Holy Father has latched onto recently is Covid. He has made it the subject of many sermons and appearances. Not only that, many in the Church have taken on the topic of Covid with great zeal and energy. Is it proportionate?

This is a subject I have been blogging about for some time now - the Church's response to Covid. There are many issues I have with it. Overall, I believe the reaction to this coronavirus is completely out of proportion to what it is. I'm not claiming Covid-19 doesn't exist or isn't dangerous, especially to some people, but I just don't think it merits a place of ultimate importance in the Church.

Every day at Church we hear not one but two announcements concerning Covid-19. I wrote about that here. I cannot think of any moral or theological issue which has been discussed to the same degree as Covid by a long shot. To me, it's as if disease and death did not exist until sometime in early 2020 when Covid became a topic of prominence. That's how ridiculous it has become. We not only give instructions, we hear special prayers to those affected by Covid, homilies on Covid, and the whole nine yards.

It's not a question of whether or not Covid should be taken seriously, it's a matter of degree. Should it be given pre-eminent importance over every other issue in the world?

Recently I was reading something by St. Alphonsus Liguori concerning the 4th commandment. He was discussed what constituted sins against the commandment to love our mother and father. He said that in the Old Testament those found guilty of grave offenses against mother and father were put to death. Then St. Alphonsus said something interesting. He said that although we do not now face the death penalty over dishonoring our parents, we potentially face something far worse: eternal damnation.

As a people of God whose home is not this Earth but rather heaven, this should mean something to us. We should not be so overly concerned about this temporal world. We don't dismiss it as if it's not real, but we don't place it as the most important thing in the universe.

I bring this up because during all of these announcements regarding Covid, amidst all the strict regulations we must follow while in Church such as keeping our distance, wearing a mask, not receiving the Blessed Sacrament on the tongue, etc, we rarely if ever hear about sin. We rarely hear about being in a state of Grace, which is a state of Friendship with God Almighty. We hear so much about the temporal passing world, and this one particular disease, but we pay far less attention to something far more dangerous which is sin. Over 99% of people will survive Covid, especially those who are young. Aren't eternal truths far more important?

I remembering reading an account of a priest during a plague outbreak in Europe. During this pandemic which was vastly more dangerous than Covid, some priests would fearlessly attend to their flocks. I will attempt to recall by memory a story I heard recounted from many centuries ago. In the midst of a vast plague that was extremely dangerous, a priest was out looking for people in need of the sacraments. While walking, a man who was assumed to be dead and had been thrown into a pit of corpses (which was to be burned) arose, and upon seeing the priest called out and asked to receive the Last Rites. He was given Viaticum and Extreme Unction. So great was the faith of this man and the priest.

I believe the Church in North America and other places is far too subservient to the state. We must demand absolute autonomy. Why should the Church, instituted by Christ 2000 years ago, bow before the state which ebbs and flows like the tide and is in constant flux, prompted not by love of God, but by political gain. I believe the Church would do a much better job of protecting both the physical safety as well as the spiritual safety of her people.

The Church has a responsibility, in my opinion, to demonstrate that her primary and in fact only obligation is towards the spiritual well being of her people. It must also be shown that spiritual concerns always trump temporal, physical concerns. "You are dust and unto dust you shall return" but our souls are eternal. This is the message which must be strongly promoted.