I think that until the 19th century the average lay Catholic probably had little notion who the current pope was, and the modern notion of hanging over their pronouncements, opinions, synods and papers is likely a post-war phenomenon.
As an institution, the papacy evolved when there was already a filter of time, distance and common sense on any pronouncement. Much of what's current will turn out to be ephemeral, and the leadership are transient. The counterweight that the millions of ordinary Catholics provide will save some things, as will the fact that our world's current beliefs are largely anti-Christian and incapable of enduring.
In essence, be less well informed of news and change and stay in the well ploughed furrow which stretches back generations.
Anything that happens in Rome is just white noise. There was a time when Catholics, even non-Catholics took an interest in what popes said and did. Now, we have a figurehead, rather like the Holy Roman Emperor was still there a thousand years after the end of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, papal 'prestige' is only a recent phenomenon from Pius lX and the loss of the papal states. The popes had to find other ways to become more relevant. If you went back to the most centuries, your average Catholic woudl pray for the pope in the Canon but would have no idea what Clement or Julius had said or thought about anything. And yet we had saints and heroes, and maybe will have them again. So maybe we should thank Pope Francis for this after all?
I do not relaly subscribe to the idea that we should thank someone for being so bad at their job a new way of living might take shape. Even if I think we need a new one, its probably best to do it without defending rapists and ruling as a bitter scrooge that will make the job of a holy and competent pope much harder.
I was being flippant. PF is taking us back to the old days of bad popes, a weak church and holy men and women keeping the Faith. It’s not ideal, and we could do with good popes and a strong church. But Our Lord did not promise this for all time. We are in a time of tribulation that will concentrate minds on what is true.
How dare you abuse the elderly? Maybe Francis will insist that Kamala should step into the lead role?
Odd parallelism. Oh, wait, maybe it isn’t odd? Maybe the infiltration techniques of communism are being used by color revolution three letter agencies? Maybe that’s why we got McCarrick and he got the China relations?
When I first got interested in Catholicism in the mid 2010s it felt like the Pope still 'mattered' on the world stage, like the head of a super-NGO. Now it just feels like he's irrelevant.
Probably 8 years ago we began having a TLM in the small city where I live. A retired math professor and his wife who was not on our mailing list arrived. I won’t go into the round about method by which he found out, but he told me how he became a Latin Mass person. Out in Oklahoma his parish had a former Lutheran pastor as their priest. He had been to a Catholic seminary after he converted in order to become a Catholic priest and at seminary the unchanging structure of the Mass was drilled into him. The canon of the Mass could not be changed. So when the Mass was changed, he basically said to hell with this. And he became an underground Latin Mass priest. I converted to the Catholic Church by finding an independent Latin Mass. They eventually joined the Diocese. But I had chosen to find a Latin Mass based on the assumption that such Catholics would not want to change their basic moral teaching. Things were fine with joining the Diocese as long as Benedict XVI was pope. It has been shaky ever since Alabama beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, which Crimson Tide fans like to joke had caused the Pope to resign. I have found that there are a lot of converts to the Church who were driven away by their Protestant church’s decision to try to change basic morality.
Interesting thesis. I too suspect Francis’s pontificate is the high water mark of the strongly progressive wing of the Church. The reaction of the “peripheries” to Fiducia Supplicans may have been the canary in the coal mine. And those cardinals from the peripheries he has appointed may move in directions he did not anticipate at the next conclave.
The Catholic Church doesn’t have “wings” like a political party. It is a society founded by Christ with a divine constitution and strict membership requirements that are supernatural in origin.
To be a member of the Catholic Church one must publicly profess the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate. There is room for different kinds of spirituality within the Church (e.g. Carmelite, Dominican) but they must all profess the same faith. Unity of faith is one of the four marks of the Catholic Church by which we can recognise the Church of Christ.
So-called progressivists always refer back to Vatican II to the almost complete exclusion of what came before because it is the foundation of their new religion and their program for transforming the Church which involves reducing the Papacy to a mere “Petrine office” that can be held by multiple people or a council. Their new religion is not a monarchy but a democracy overseen by Bishops who receive their jurisdiction (mission) from Christ himself rather than the Pope. In a similar manner most non-Catholic sects also claim to receive their authority from Christ himself.
Vatican II founded a new Church that pretends to be the Catholic Church but teaches already infallibly condemned errors. Such a council could not have come from the authority of the Catholic Church which enjoys divine protection and is infallibly safe to follow in her ordinary teaching.
I would encourage all to read the linked series of articles in order to begin to understand the difference between Catholicism and the modernist religion that has usurped her and has been falling into ruin from its inception.
"The Catholic Church can't behave like every other institution that has existed on earth for millenia"
Therefore, when it does, here is my theory which I invented out of whole cloth to try and make sense of perfectly normal human events which the Bible warned were real possibilities.
I’m not sure what cloth you’ve used but it isn’t based upon what the Church teaches about herself.
The Catholic Church is the only organisation that has survived for Millenia and as the Divinely Instituted Teaching Authority and Mystical Body of Christ she cannot fail.
But heretical sects rise and fall throughout history and at the moment we have one such heretical sect pretending to be her and even becoming more universal than her. This conciliar sect, founded with a new constitution at Vatican II teaches already condemned errors. You can read about them here: https://catholicesquire.org/category/errors-of-vatican-ii/
A lot of things in the Vatican make so much more sense if one simply assumes that Francis sees himself (mainly) as the Head of State of Vatican City, and not as the occupant of the Chair of Peter.
In November 2023 I went to a free open meeting at the Catholic Church in Wokingham 30 miles west of London. Austen Ivereigh was speaking on the Synod session which had finished a week earlier. Some organisation paid Austin's bill. In the spirit of that America Magazine one dollar offer, part of the reason I went was that transport was also free. I have a pensioner's bus pass. No, I am not going if there is a repeat in 2024. Even if I'm paid.
I think that until the 19th century the average lay Catholic probably had little notion who the current pope was, and the modern notion of hanging over their pronouncements, opinions, synods and papers is likely a post-war phenomenon.
As an institution, the papacy evolved when there was already a filter of time, distance and common sense on any pronouncement. Much of what's current will turn out to be ephemeral, and the leadership are transient. The counterweight that the millions of ordinary Catholics provide will save some things, as will the fact that our world's current beliefs are largely anti-Christian and incapable of enduring.
In essence, be less well informed of news and change and stay in the well ploughed furrow which stretches back generations.
Anything that happens in Rome is just white noise. There was a time when Catholics, even non-Catholics took an interest in what popes said and did. Now, we have a figurehead, rather like the Holy Roman Emperor was still there a thousand years after the end of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, papal 'prestige' is only a recent phenomenon from Pius lX and the loss of the papal states. The popes had to find other ways to become more relevant. If you went back to the most centuries, your average Catholic woudl pray for the pope in the Canon but would have no idea what Clement or Julius had said or thought about anything. And yet we had saints and heroes, and maybe will have them again. So maybe we should thank Pope Francis for this after all?
I do not relaly subscribe to the idea that we should thank someone for being so bad at their job a new way of living might take shape. Even if I think we need a new one, its probably best to do it without defending rapists and ruling as a bitter scrooge that will make the job of a holy and competent pope much harder.
I was being flippant. PF is taking us back to the old days of bad popes, a weak church and holy men and women keeping the Faith. It’s not ideal, and we could do with good popes and a strong church. But Our Lord did not promise this for all time. We are in a time of tribulation that will concentrate minds on what is true.
I pray that in times of bad popes great saints will rise.
How dare you abuse the elderly? Maybe Francis will insist that Kamala should step into the lead role?
Odd parallelism. Oh, wait, maybe it isn’t odd? Maybe the infiltration techniques of communism are being used by color revolution three letter agencies? Maybe that’s why we got McCarrick and he got the China relations?
When I first got interested in Catholicism in the mid 2010s it felt like the Pope still 'mattered' on the world stage, like the head of a super-NGO. Now it just feels like he's irrelevant.
I think many will agree with you on Pope Francis.
This is Vatican II church.
The Catholic Church is very much alive, no pope in 66 years, protected by Jesus.
https://open.substack.com/pub/stevenberger/p/orthodoxy-and-the-religion-of-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1nm0v2
> We’ve come a long way from “the culmination of the Second Vatican Council” to a discussion about nothing, leading to a document about nothing
The "Seinfeld Synod", if you will. Roche is Costanza, and Tucho is of course Larry David. Beans I'm not sure, maybe Newman or perhaps the Soup Nazi.
Probably 8 years ago we began having a TLM in the small city where I live. A retired math professor and his wife who was not on our mailing list arrived. I won’t go into the round about method by which he found out, but he told me how he became a Latin Mass person. Out in Oklahoma his parish had a former Lutheran pastor as their priest. He had been to a Catholic seminary after he converted in order to become a Catholic priest and at seminary the unchanging structure of the Mass was drilled into him. The canon of the Mass could not be changed. So when the Mass was changed, he basically said to hell with this. And he became an underground Latin Mass priest. I converted to the Catholic Church by finding an independent Latin Mass. They eventually joined the Diocese. But I had chosen to find a Latin Mass based on the assumption that such Catholics would not want to change their basic moral teaching. Things were fine with joining the Diocese as long as Benedict XVI was pope. It has been shaky ever since Alabama beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, which Crimson Tide fans like to joke had caused the Pope to resign. I have found that there are a lot of converts to the Church who were driven away by their Protestant church’s decision to try to change basic morality.
They are fast becoming non Catholics!
Interesting thesis. I too suspect Francis’s pontificate is the high water mark of the strongly progressive wing of the Church. The reaction of the “peripheries” to Fiducia Supplicans may have been the canary in the coal mine. And those cardinals from the peripheries he has appointed may move in directions he did not anticipate at the next conclave.
The Catholic Church doesn’t have “wings” like a political party. It is a society founded by Christ with a divine constitution and strict membership requirements that are supernatural in origin.
To be a member of the Catholic Church one must publicly profess the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate. There is room for different kinds of spirituality within the Church (e.g. Carmelite, Dominican) but they must all profess the same faith. Unity of faith is one of the four marks of the Catholic Church by which we can recognise the Church of Christ.
So-called progressivists always refer back to Vatican II to the almost complete exclusion of what came before because it is the foundation of their new religion and their program for transforming the Church which involves reducing the Papacy to a mere “Petrine office” that can be held by multiple people or a council. Their new religion is not a monarchy but a democracy overseen by Bishops who receive their jurisdiction (mission) from Christ himself rather than the Pope. In a similar manner most non-Catholic sects also claim to receive their authority from Christ himself.
https://catholicesquire.org/vatican-ii-errors-collegiality/
Vatican II founded a new Church that pretends to be the Catholic Church but teaches already infallibly condemned errors. Such a council could not have come from the authority of the Catholic Church which enjoys divine protection and is infallibly safe to follow in her ordinary teaching.
I would encourage all to read the linked series of articles in order to begin to understand the difference between Catholicism and the modernist religion that has usurped her and has been falling into ruin from its inception.
"The Catholic Church can't behave like every other institution that has existed on earth for millenia"
Therefore, when it does, here is my theory which I invented out of whole cloth to try and make sense of perfectly normal human events which the Bible warned were real possibilities.
This isn't religion. Its fanfic.
I’m not sure what cloth you’ve used but it isn’t based upon what the Church teaches about herself.
The Catholic Church is the only organisation that has survived for Millenia and as the Divinely Instituted Teaching Authority and Mystical Body of Christ she cannot fail.
But heretical sects rise and fall throughout history and at the moment we have one such heretical sect pretending to be her and even becoming more universal than her. This conciliar sect, founded with a new constitution at Vatican II teaches already condemned errors. You can read about them here: https://catholicesquire.org/category/errors-of-vatican-ii/
Like I said... its governed by the rules of fanfic.
The modernist sect? No, it is governed by the “principles” of modernism. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html
A lot of things in the Vatican make so much more sense if one simply assumes that Francis sees himself (mainly) as the Head of State of Vatican City, and not as the occupant of the Chair of Peter.
I pray you are right Kevin
In November 2023 I went to a free open meeting at the Catholic Church in Wokingham 30 miles west of London. Austen Ivereigh was speaking on the Synod session which had finished a week earlier. Some organisation paid Austin's bill. In the spirit of that America Magazine one dollar offer, part of the reason I went was that transport was also free. I have a pensioner's bus pass. No, I am not going if there is a repeat in 2024. Even if I'm paid.