Fr. Julio Miranda, rector of the seminary in Buenos Aires, told Clarin that the Pope “has had no impact” on vocations. As the paper put it, the “appointment of an Argentine pope, precisely from the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, with the idea of the ‘Church of the peripheries,’ ‘missionary’ (church) that will convey ‘the joy of the Gospel,’ could not mitigate the fall in consecrated vocations.”20
German cardinal Walter Brandmüller sees no evidence that the Francis effect has strengthened the Church. “It is superficial. Were this a religious movement, the churches would be full,” he has said. A “laissez-faire” Catholicism, he said, “would mean watching passively the devastation of the Church from within.”21 Even Cardinal Kurt Koch, who is sympathetic to the pope’s liberal spin on Catholicism, has acknowledged that the glowing talk around this pontificate is largely empty: “There is a lot of excitement about him, but as one can certainly see, in the people leaving the church in many countries, you can’t really detect a Francis effect.”22
Francis Fatigue
Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of a “two-sided, deep crisis” in the Church since Vatican II, which was triggered by a modernist theology that rejected the centrality of Catholicism to the salvation of souls:
If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost—and this explains their missionary commitment—in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.
From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated.23
That crisis has only deepened under Pope Francis, as its identity becomes increasingly politicized and non-theological.
“Right up to this day, many people have been trying to determine Francis’ true intentions. If you ask cardinals and bishops, or the pope’s advisors and colleagues, or veteran Vatican observers about his possible strategy these days—the Pope’s overarching plan—they seem to agree on one point: The man who sits on the Chair of St. Peter is a notorious troublemaker,” says Der Spiegel.24
Out of this chaos has come a measure of Francis fatigue.
According to Politico, “Francis has not proved to be a magnet for people converting to Catholicism or attending Sunday mass, according to data. In Italy, attendance at places of worship decreased in 2014 to 28.8 percent of the population compared to more than 30 percent during the years of Ratzinger, according to Istat, the Italian statistics bureau.” At the same time, it continued, “the Union of Rational Atheists and Agnostics in Italy reported last week that online applications to download a form allowing people to ‘de-baptize’ themselves, meaning to formally request to be taken off the Church’s rolls as a member, reached an all-time high in 2015 of 47,726.”25
Catholics feel that his popularity with the liberal elite comes “at the expense of the Church,” and that his “snazzy sayings” mean nothing, said German novelist Martin Mosebach. “What is concerning about Pope Francis is the atmosphere he creates—as though an entirely new Church has been created which has never existed before in this way,” said Mosebach. “As though Francis is correcting centuries of abnormal development and is creating a new type of Church without dogma, without mysticism. A Church which finds itself in compliance with the current social consensus.”26
Supporters, such as the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, concede that his pontificate is perplexing. “I don’t believe that Francis seriously expects that he will be able to complete the processes that he has initiated,” he said. As to where he is directing the Church, he said, “It’s very possible that he himself doesn’t even know.”27
The late Chicago cardinal Francis George, who was an early supporter of the pope, nevertheless found the pope’s ambiguity irritating.
Why doesn’t he himself clarify these things? Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear that burden of trying to put the best possible face on it? Does he not realize the consequences of some of his statements, or even some of his actions? Does he not realize the repercussions? Perhaps he doesn’t. I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise these doubts in people’s minds.
That’s one of the things I’d like to have the chance to ask him, if I ever get over there. Do you realize what has happened, just by that very phrase “Who am I to judge?” How it’s been used and misused? It’s very misused, because he was talking about someone who has already asked for mercy and been given absolution whom he knows well. That’s entirely different than talking to somebody who demands acceptance rather than asking for forgiveness. It’s constantly misused.28
The pope appears unfazed by these criticisms. Asked during a 2016 interview about the complaints of conservative Catholics, he replied defiantly: “They say no to everything. I go ahead, without looking over my shoulder.”29
Under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, the Church stood as a rock in a rising sea of secularism, and many conservatives swam toward it. But that appeal is rapidly diminishing under Pope Francis.
Writing in Time magazine, journalist Rod Dreher spoke for many conservatives when he wrote, “I’m an ex-Catholic whose decision to leave the Catholic Church is not challenged by Francis’ words but rather confirmed.” Pope Francis, he continued, “makes me realize that the good, if incomplete, work that John Paul II and Benedict XVI did to restore the Church after the violence of the [liberal] revolution stands to be undone. The ‘spirit of Pope Francis’ will replace the ‘spirit of Vatican II’ as the rationalization people will use to ignore the difficult teachings of the faith.”30
Shocked by the pope’s speech to the U.S. Congress in 2015, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, commented to LifeSiteNews that “it must send a very clear signal to conservative Catholics that they have faced exactly what they feared, a Pope who is not only leaning left, but is going to take the Roman Catholic Church to the left with him.”31
“Morale is low,” says a priest in an interview for this book. “We reached a moment of hope after the last two popes. That hope has been replaced by fear and trembling. Francis is the worst pope in centuries.”
“We were spoiled with the last two popes,” says another priest interviewed for this book. “Now we are on Code Red Alert.”
In 2016, forty-five scholars sent a letter to the Church’s cardinals, asking them to seek clarification from the pope on Amoris Laetitia. The group, which included such prominent theologians as Fr. Aidan Nichols, identified nineteen statements in the pope’s exhortation that lend themselves to “heretical” interpretation.
As Catholic theologians and philosophers, church historians and pastors of souls, we are writing to you in your capacity as Dean of the College of Cardinals to request that the College of Cardinals and the Patriarchs of the Catholic Church take collective action to respond to the dangers to Catholic faith and morals posed by the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia issued by Pope Francis on March 19th 2016. This apostolic exhortation contains a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to Catholic faith and morals. We have specified the nature and degree of the errors that could be attributed to Amoris laetitia in the accompanying document. We request that the Cardinals and Patriarchs petition the Holy Father to condemn the errors listed in the document in a definitive and final manner, and to authoritatively state that Amoris laetitia does not require any of them to be believed or considered
as possibly true.
“Just as it is lawful to resist the pope that attacks the body,” argued St. Robert Bellarmine, the celebrated sixteenth-century Jesuit, “it is also lawful to resist the one who attacks souls or who disturbs civil order, or, above all, who attempts to destroy the Church. I say that it is lawful to resist him by not doing what he orders and preventing his will from being executed.”
“Bellarmine envisioned the possibility of a pope who held heretical views occupying the papacy,” says a Jesuit scholar interviewed for this book. “One of the scenarios he wrote about was that the college of cardinals could resist such a pope.” But this priest added, without any apparent irony, that he didn’t think the crisis would reach that point, because “God will strike Francis dead before he destroys the Church.”
In November 2016, four cardinals, frustrated by the pope’s refusal to clarify his heterodox statements about marriage and conscience, released to the public a letter they had written to him. They explained that they released it after he declined to answer it for almost two months. Signed by three European cardinals (Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner) and an American cardinal (Raymond Burke), the letter urged Pope Francis to dispel the “grave disorientation and great confusion of many faithful regarding extremely important matters for the life of the Church.”32
It is difficult to find a parallel in Church history to such a challenge. (One pope, Honorius I, was condemned by the Church for his “impious doctrines,” but the condemnation came after his death.) In the letter, the cardinals are in effect asking the pope if he supports basic tenets of Catholic moral theology. Cardinal Burke has said that the cardinals will make a “formal act of correction of a serious error” if he continues to ignore the letter.
So far he has. One of his advisers tweeted out (then deleted the tweet) an image comparing the cardinals to a “worm” while the pope dismissed them as mental defectives who see life “in black and white.”33 Though said to be “boiling with rage” about the challenge, he has affected a pose of indifference, saying that his critics are “not making me lose any sleep.”34
But Catholics in the pews are. Increasingly bewildered by this pontificate, they wonder: How did it come to this? How did the papacy go from safeguarding doctrinal unity to shattering it? How did it go from fighting a sinful world to joining it? How did it go from a spiritual bastion to a partner of the United Nations and a pagan political order?
A professor of theology, who directs dissertations that touch on the subject of bad popes, just shook his head when asked about the state of this pontificate. “My students now have more material,” he said with a grim chuckle.
The crisis created by this pontificate’s toxic combination of political liberalism and doctrinal relativism is a historically singular one, which gives its unfolding a disconcerting drama: How will it end? What if he succeeds? The left is already anticipating that the next pope will be a Francis clone. A hopeful New York Times reports on “Pope Francis’ Race against Time to Reshape the Church.” By the end of 2016, he had named forty-four cardinals, a third of the college of cardinals and perhaps enough, the Times implied, “to ensure that his vision of the Church” outlasts him.35
Dismayed by that prospect, Catholics find consolation in the words of Jesus Christ, that the “gates of hell will not prevail” against the Church. They also find consolation in the long and resilient history of the Church, which has faced countless challenges, both external and internal, and survived. Yet with a measure of dread they also know that for the Church to survive they must undertake the most peculiar of duties. Where their ancestors defended the pope from enemies of the faith, they now must defend the faith from a pope who aligns with her enemies.
Acknowledgments
Finding a publisher for a book, let alone a politically incorrect book like this one, is a tricky task. Thanks to the large-mindedness of Kate Hartson at Hachette Book Group, I found one. I am grateful to her for enthusiastically supporting the presentation of a point of view that receives little coverage in the media. I also thank Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn at the literary agency Javelin for their effective representation and advice.
While writing the book, I received research assistance or encouragement from the following people, to whom I owe thanks: Roger McCaffrey, Daniel Allott, Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., Scott Daily, Steve Tallman, Michele Diatta, James Bendell, Anne Braden, and Mary Neumayr.
Thanks also to my entire family, with special mention of my parents, John and Bridget Neumayr. It is through them that I received the Roman Catholic faith—the spark from which this book came and to which it is intended to pay truthful service.
Notes
Chapter One: The Pope They Have Been Waiting For
1. Alan Riding. “Pope Says Taking Sides in Nicaragua Is Peril to Church.” New York Times, March 5, 1983. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/05/world/pope-says-taking-sides-in-nicaragua-is-peril-to-church.html.
2. “Stasi Files Implicate KGB in Pope Shooting.” Deutsche Welle, January 4, 2005. http://www.dw.com/en/stasi-files-implicate-kgb-in-pope-shooting/a-1538173-0.
3. “Former Soviet Spy: We Created Liberation Theology,” Catholic News Agency, May 1, 2015. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/former-soviet-spy-we-created-liberation-theology-83634.
4. Michael Hichborn. “The Marxist Core of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.” Lepanto Institute, November 11, 2015. http://www.lepantoinstitute.org/cchd/the-marxist-core-of-the-catholic-campaign-for-human-development.
5. “Former Soviet Spy: We Created Liberation Theology,” Catholic News Agency, May 1, 2015. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/former-soviet-spy-we-created-liberation-theology-83634.
6. Larry Rohter. “As Pope Heads to Brazil, Rival Theology Persists.” New York Times, May 7, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07iht-07theology.5593324.html.
7. Nicole Winfield. “Liberation Theology Rehabilitation Continues at Vatican.” Associated Press, May 7, 2015. http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/05/07/liberation-theology-rehabilitation-continues-at-vatican.
8. “The Pope: How the Church Will Change.” La Repubblica, October 1, 2013.http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118.
9. James Fitzpatrick. “Catholic Newspeak?” Catholic Exchange, March 18, 2003. http://catholicexchange.com/catholic-newspeak.
10. Joshua J. McElwee. “Pope Meets with Liberation Theology Pioneer.” National Catholic Reporter, September 25, 2013. https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/pope-meets-liberation-theology-pioneer.
11. Kaya Oakes. “Immigration and the Francis Effect.” Foreign Policy, September 24, 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/24/pope-francis-congress-catholic-washington-immigration.
12. Cindy Wooden. “Pope Lifts Suspension of Father D’Escoto, Former Sandinista Official,” Catholic News Service, August 4, 2014. https://www.ncronline.org/news/global/pope-lifts-suspension-father-descoto-former-sandinista-official.
13. “In New Declarations, Priest Pardoned by Pope Francis Says, ‘The Holy Spirit Sends Us Jesus’ Message through Fidel Castro.’” Rorate Caeli, August 6, 2014. http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/08/in-new-declarations-priest-pardoned-by.html.
14. Atila Sinke Guimaraes. “Bird’s Eye View of the News,” Tradition in Action, July 31, 2013. http://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/158bev07_31_2013.htm.
15. “Vatican: Gay Partnerships and Cohabitation Can Be Positive.” Associated Press, October 13, 2014. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/vatican-gay-partnerships-cohabitation-positive-article-1.1972754.
16. Josephine McKenna. “Burke: Church under Francis Is a ‘Ship without a Rudder.’” National Catholic Reporter, October 13, 2014. https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/burke-church-under-francis-ship-without-rudder.
17. Bishop Athanasius Schneider. “Bishop Athanasius Schneider Replies to The Remnant’s Open Letter on Amoris Laetitia.” Remnant,
June 2, 2016. http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2558-bishop-athanasius-schneider-replies-to-the-remnant-s-open-letter-on-amoris-laetitia.
18. “Under Bergoglio, Christianity Matters Less.” Rorate Caeli, November 13, 2014. http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/11/under-bergoglio-christianity-matters.html.
19. Damian Thompson. “Is the Pope Catholic? Here’s Why Many of His Flock Aren’t Sure.” Heat Street, June 6, 2016. http://heatst.com/uk/is-the-pope-catholic-heres-why-many-of-pope-francis-flock-arent-sure.
20. Maike Hickson. “Famed German Philosopher Makes Waves for Criticizing Pope Francis’ ‘Autocratic’ Style.” LifeSiteNews, April 27, 2015. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/famed-german-catholic-philosopher-makes-waves-for-criticizing-pope-francis.
21. “Rebel Pope Urges Catholics to Shake Up Dioceses.” Associated Press, July 25, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130725/lt-brazil-pope.
22. Michael Chapman. “Catholic Bishop: ‘Pope Francis Is Fond of Creating a Mess: Mission Accomplished.’” CNS, October 22, 2014. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman.
23. Josh Feldman. “Pope Francis Addresses ‘Ultraconservatives (and Limbaugh?) Calling Him a Marxist.” Mediaite, December 14, 2013. http://www.mediaite.com/online/pope-francis-addresses-ultraconservatives-and-limbaugh-calling-him-a-marxist.
24. Javier Cámara and Sebastián Pfaffen. Understanding Pope Francis. (N.p.: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2015), 37
25. James Carroll. “Who Am I to Judge?” New Yorker, December 23, 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/who-am-i-to-judge.
26. John Allen. “Why Francis Won’t Let Women Become Priests.” Time, March 6, 2015. http://time.com/3729904/francis-women.
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