"The worst pope ever"?

Unknown said...

RIght! I always knew the Church was wrong about Papal infallibillity! its really Curia infallibility! Like an infallible senate!

16 March, 2019

Aqua said...

It doesn’t matter where Francis fits in the good-bad Papal continuum, (I am not surprised at all he maxes out at bad).

What matters is the Pope Emeritus who still resides “firmly and forever within the enclosure of St. Peter”, who “by no means abandons the cross of St. Peter or the Papal life of contemplation and prayer”, while a younger more vigorous Pope acts side by side as sovereign governor.

That arrangement is new; an innovation. When it comes to something as fundamental as Christ’s Rock, innovation must be supported in Scripture and Tradition to ever hope to be accepted by the Faithful. I see no reason to support something that does not have Scripture or Tradition behind it. No prior examples anywhere in Catholic history.

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16 March, 2019

Bartleby #59 said...

Thank you Father for this.

One of the problems that we are facing is that, in spite of the focus on the rights and responsibilities of the episcopate in Vatican II, individual bishops are treated as extensions and subordinates of the Petrine Office. While a priest's authority derives from his bishop, it is not true that a bishop's authority stems from the Pope. Rather, it stems directly from Jesus Christ's own authority. The Papal Office serves to confirm the brethren, not to dictate to the brethren, and the brethren work in unity to speak in unison through the Papacy.

Both parts need to be functioning correctly. Fixing the dysfunction of the current Papacy doesn't fix the dysfunction in the rest of the episcopate. Yes, if one had a good Pope like Benedict XVI, one could ignore the dysfunction of one's own local bishop and just follow the Pope. However, the sheer amount of internal chafing that went on between a functional Pope and a dysfunctional episcopate, especially as manifested in the wolfs of the curia, is largely why the abdication happened.

A point to ponder for Fr. Hunwicke -- if the Papacy is in suspense, is it possible that the functioning of the Ordinary Magisterium is also in suspense? What that means, I do not know. What I do know is that, as much as there is righteous uproar over things attempted to be taught by Pope Francis, one can very much hear the same, if not worse, from local bishops, either individually or as conferences (looking at you Germany).

16 March, 2019

Tereze Avila said...

Pope Francis has not finished yet... We will know the truth, once he will give his last breath. There is a general understanding that the worse is in front of us, like: schism, destruction of the church as we know it and creating one worldwide church of many religions in the name of peace, changing in the Holy Mass - making it unworthy, destruction of the clergy by demanding a loyal oath to Francis, not to Jesus... etc... etc...

Hold your opinion, until all will be over. He didn't finish yet!!!

16 March, 2019

Donna Bethell (formerly known as Rose Marie) said...

All together now, one more time: "For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles." Pastor Aeternus, c. 4.

16 March, 2019

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Tony V said...

None of us knows the moral status of any pope, of course; that is known to God alone. We can however opine on which popes were bad popes qua pope. In that respect, in my opinion, Paul VI wins hands down, for no prior pope had ever dared to abrogate the liturgy, and no pope had single-handedly driven so many millions of people away from the church.

Sure, Pio Nono called a rigged council, which he styled 'oecumenical', to get himself declared the infallible CEO of the church, a novel doctrine, and yes Francis has absurdly declared, contrary to all evidence, that the church teaches that the death penalty is 'inadmissable' (whatever that means), but grievous as these errors are, in my view they pale in comparison to Paul VI.

Of course, I could be wrong...

16 March, 2019

William Tighe said...

"Papal authority is not personal in an individualistic or whimsical sort of way. The pope (*) is supposed to say, not what he feels or wants, but what the judgement of the Roman Church is as a corporate and structured body mindful of its own Holy and immemorial Tradition. (When PF, after some off-the-cuff remarks about his own liturgical preferences, emphatically added "This is Magisterium!", he thereby exemplified the main error which he entertains with regard to his own job-description.)"

(*) Pace the prodigious plagiarist Fr. Rosica ("Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is free from disordered attachments ... Our Church has indeed entered a new phase. With the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”) whose one venture, here, into venting his own notions makes me hope he will stick to plagiarism in the future.

17 March, 2019

Miles Mariae said...

Paul IV was a holy man. The church needed a zealous reformer and in him they found it. A man of action, a dictator pope, but according to God's law.

In God's providence he was raised, his reign laid the foundations for his saintly successors, even if it was so that they could contrast with him.

I think the former Anglican perspective is skewed with regard to England and the heresy of Henry, how often you catch former Anglicans condemning even saintly Pius V for his excommunication of Elizabeth. God's justice had to be done.

I would like to see a fairer and more detailed assessment of Paul IV. Paul was in no way heretical, he was zealous for God's law and frustrated at the slowness of the council. Francis is a modernist out to destroy, Paul wanted to sort out the filth in the church and he did his best. At the end of his reign no one can deny Rome was holier and good cardinals in place.

17 March, 2019

Fr John Hunwicke said...

I object to the hinthint suggestion that I disapprove of S Pius V. I approve of him strongly. I said my first Mass in full communion with the See of Rome next to a statue of him.

Caraffa weakened the English Church by declining to appoint bishops. Reginald Pole, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, died having had his legatine commission suspended and under summons to go to Rome on a charge of heresy. When Archbishop Hethe of York defended the papal primacy in Elizabeth Tudor's Parliament, he had to admit the failings of the current occupant of the Roman See. Caraffa frustrated Pole's plan to found a seminary in Rome so that the upper English clergy could be educated in the centre of the Catholic world to be true Romans. And all because he was fanatically anti-Habsburg. We can do with fewer Caraffas.

Fires of Faith by Eamon Duffy describes in detail the English Counter-Reformation which Caraffa frustrated.

17 March, 2019

Tony V said...

Miles Mariae: You may be right that Paul VI was a holy man, although I don't know how you could possibly discern that. (The current canonisation process has made the institutional church about as credible on saints as it is on child molestation. Popes now seem to canonise each other willy-nilly, the way Roman emperors deified their predecessors.)

I don't see that Paul 'reformed' anything, aside from trying to abolish the Mass of Pius V. Did he do away with financial corruption in the Vatican? Did he drive out sodomy? Did he roll back the excesses of Vatican I? (Far from it.)And as for Mindszenty...an utter disgrace.
But I do admit there are many aspects of Paul VI I'm unfamiliar with.

It may be, as you say, that Paul 'did his best', but his best was certainly not good enough. It may well be that even a holy man can be a poor excuse for a pope. Not saying I'd have done a better job. But few could have done worse.

17 March, 2019

Miles Mariae said...

If Paul IV is to be criticized you have shown quite clearly how it is with regards to some actions he took towards England, that is agreed, he failed there. But let us not forget, history has shown, and perhaps it was even thought at the time, that such reforms would have helped very little anyway, given the imminence of bloody Bess.

17 March, 2019

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Not That Guy said...

You're making up your defense of Francis as you go along. The issue is not whether Francis is personally evil or immoral, it's whether he is a heretic. The "bad popes" argument has been refuted many times.

18 March, 2019

Unknown said...

Possibly Father Hunwicke can relate in spite of his superior education than mine, but as a convert from Protestantism, I think I can say that we who possess such a backgrounds may have an advantage here, even if it is just a morale advantage.

See, as a Protestant about all the popes I ever heard about were the rally bad ones, tempered a few begrudging head nod tossed in the direction of JPII for his tendency to disagree with Communists. In truth, having such a background fully convinced me of the humanity of popes, compounded by the Biblical fact that about 10 minutes after proclaiming Simon the Rock upon which the Church would be built, Jesus called the same guy..."Satan". Good grief, Our Blessed Lord only called Judas a generic "devil"!

So I didn't really expect popes to be perfect or anything like that, and Bergoglio has thus satisfied that specific anticipation in every way.

18 March, 2019