7 Luglio 2022 Pubblicato da Marco Tosatti

Marco Tosatti

Dear readers of Stilum Curiae, we are living through times of great confusion and ambiguity, and unfortunately those who ought to help us to see things clearly seem only to contribute to and increase the confusion. As you can read here in what Msgr. X writes. Enjoy your reading.

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Dear Dr. Tosatti, I am beginning to appreciate the attitude of looking for the “hair in the egg,” and I look back with nostalgia on the times when, in matters of the Catholic faith, we used to “split hairs into four parts.”

Let me explain myself. Today at La Verità, an article by the great Lorenzo Bertocchi, tells us about Bergoglio’s possible trip to Kiev and Moscow.

But in the piece, Bertocchi refers to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on abortion and to the fact that Nancy Pelosi was given Holy Communion during the Pope’s Mass at Saint Peter’s Basilica, even though she has been denied Communion by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco for her support of pro-abortion policies.

Bergoglio comments (in quotation marks): “When the Church loses her pastoral nature, when a Bishop loses his pastoral nature, it creates a political problem (sic). This is all that I can say.” (Thus directly contradicting Cordileone).

My immediate reaction was: “But if the Church and a Bishop take on a political nature, don’t they risk causing pastoral damage?”

I would like however to attempt a useful reflection for the readers of Stilum Curiae (if I can) because I have the impression that Bergoglio admits that he has deliberately created both a doctrinal and political problem all at once.

Let’s look at what a “pastoral nature” is and how Bergoglio has made use of it.

– The “pastoral nature” of the Church and of a Bishop refers to the preaching of the Gospel as being the essence of evangelization. (Fides et Ratio n. 70)

The pastoral nature towards the one who “wanders” (such as someone who sins by supporting abortion) consists certainly in dialoguing, but for the purpose of correcting the wanderer, not simply for “understanding” him.

The Church and the Bishop announces the mystery of salvation because God wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (Saint Paul’s First Letter to Timothy), consequently the Church and the Bishop must be concerned with assuring this knowledge, as well as saving human lives that would otherwise be massacred in the womb of their mothers. Good heavens!

The pastoral nature of the Church consists in all the means used in order to implement the teachings of Christ, not in order to console Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden or Emma Bonino.  And with what results?

Certainly it is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that Bergoglio uses ambiguous and confusing language.

In 2021 he clarified (causing confusion as he did so) the distinction between doctrine and pastoral approach by explaining that “Abortion is still murder, but I have never refused communion to anyone.”

Aristotle and Saint Thomas must be “rolling over in their graves” (I am certain that Saint Thomas was listening in from heaven and passed it on to Aristotle…) on hearing such an absurd para-syllogism.

It would be like making the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Confession both collapse at the same time. And as Father Nicola Bux explains in his splendid book on the Sacraments (“Con i Sacramenti non si scherza” – “With the Sacraments There is No Joking”), they are like dominoes: if one falls then all the others fall too.

Am I overly suspicious?

Yes I am, because when it comes to eternal life one cannot joke around. Bergoglio does not deny communion to anyone, it’s true, but is that because he does not believe in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, or because he does not believe what Saint Paul writes in the First Letter to the Corinthians (“whoever eats unworthily…)? Bergoglio has encouraged giving Communion to the divorced (“…it is not a reward for the perfect but a remedy for the weak…”), then he encouraged giving Communion to Protestants (giving freedom to one’s personal conscience, as always), explaining (“listen, listen!…”) that “because we have the same Baptism, we must walk together….”

Of course, not everyone is a rigorous as this writer. Cardinal Muller, for example, a man of great stature and faith, referring to Amoris Laetitia in his introduction to the irrelevant little book by Rocco Buttiglione, insists a lot on the topic of “pastoral discernment.”

Let’s hope that these priests reflect on their capacity to have and to know how to put into practice such discernment. But I would like to make a final point.

Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law says that those who collaborate in abortion are not to be admitted [to Holy Communion] because they are de facto excommunicated. “Those who collaborate in abortion. Thus, pro-abortion politicians: that is, those who (paraphrasing a dull and always ambiguous phrase by Bergoglio) permit hired assassins to use weapons to kill the creature in the mother’s womb.

Bertocchi concludes his piece by quoting Bergoglio on his possible resignation. “When I see that I can’t do it anymore, I will do it,” Francis answered. And recalling the resignation of his predecessor, he said, “It was a good thing for the Church and for the popes. A great example.”

Paraphrasing Sergio Quinzio: “With Bergoglio, the gnosis we are experiencing is already behind us; now we risk that ahead of us there is only nothing.”

The Bishops must react!

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Tag: communion, ics, X

Categoria: Generale