Behold the power of bloggers

Those of us with kids know how one kid will come to us and whine "mom he's LOOKING at me... have him stop". Presumably a sibling's smirk is so evil that they need to be punished severely.

Well, now the PC in the Catholic church are whining: "mom,  he's blogging about me and said something mean".

and who is daring to do this? Father Z is blamed.

but of course he can defend himself... Behold the power of wordpress!

But you know, there is a pattern here that started against the "dubia" bishops and then against those nasty "converts" knew the bible well enough to quote the Bible to the Pope by saying: isn't there something in the Bible about not receiving the sacrament when you are living in sin?

You know how it goes:

from Catholic culture editor, Phillip Lawler:

See if you recognize this rhetorical strategy: Say that the people who disagree with you are motivated by hatred.

Say that they’re dangerous extremists, a threat to civil society.

Say that you are interested in genuine debate, but your opponents won’t allow it.

Compare your opponents to Nazis. Insist that responsible people must disavow any connection with your opponents.

And then… Say that your opponents are intolerant. It’s a clever technique: a campaign of intolerance, camouflaged as a plea for tolerance. And it’s picking up steam in the Catholic media.

The fight against the pious started when Burke and three other bishops (AKA "the dubia bishops") dared to question ambiguous language in the Popes letter about the Joy of Sex...

that still hasn't been clarified.

Ah, but the latest kerfluffle is about the church being "gay friendly".

Well, I'm old fashioned: You want to sin, fine. Go to confession and try try again. Rinse and repeat.
Don't ask don't tell sounds good to me.

However, I lived when bishops like Law and Adamec managed to openly give mercy to the gay priests and pedophiles in their midst, and I suspect a lot of other good Catholics remember those days and wonder how these bishops can be so clueless.

But  alas, this not about a single issue, i.e. how should a person with a same sex attraction live as a good Catholic.

It is part of the entire agenda by "reformers" to make the Catholic church into Episcopalian lite... conspiracy sites point fingers at the German/British bishops as the puppet masters behind the Pope's actions, and some even say he is not aware of what is their real agenda

Don't ask me. I live in the Philippines where divorce is illegal, but hey, Tagle is running for Pope and so our bishops will be merciful and give communion to the divorced and remarried (why not? They give it to crooked politicians. Heck, our ex mayor who murdered his political opponent's family and several bystanders including our nephew was buried with a fancy mass, and even with a KofC honor guard).

and so the conspiracy theories that once were only discussed on Coast to Coastam are now creeping into reality.

and who stands in their way, when the cautious don't want to stand with those deplorable ubercatholics?

Secular writers, including bloggers.

Sandro Magister , for example, is a Vatican watcher (now no longer in favor) but he is busy posting the latest news on his blog in Italy, including the African vs the PC Jesuit.

Today's headline?
So Long, Wojtyla and Caffarra. Here Comes the Francis Family

This think tank on the family will now include thinking about "caring for creation". (read population control to save mother Gaia?) Since the "population bomb" author Paul Ehrlich addressed a recent Vatican conference on the Environment, it does sort of make you wonder.

Magister also warned about how the medical ethics think tank at the Vatican was revamped to include pro abortion/pro euthanasia non Catholic voices to get more points of view.

for the latest kerfuffle, check out Father L.... he is trying to keep his hands clean and stay above the fray, but his blog post notes that a certain unpopular Potowanamie bishop is on the warpath, as is a certain African intellectual Cardinal... and to make things worse, both these bishops use deep and nuanced logic to point out the problem.

Indeed, both of them dare to write books about not being ashamed to proclaim the gospel in a post Christian world, but with nuances and reason that make their arguments harder to ignore than the semi hysterical "rigidity" of the trad/uber-Catholic blogosphere of the right...

St Atahanasius, call your office.

rotten fish theology

The saying goes: The fish rots from the head down.

Meaning: When an organization or state fails, it is the leadership that is the root cause.


SP notes that part of the problem behind the recent accidents in the USNavy can be attributed to leadership problem. Yes, there is over work and transition, but having yes men in leadership has made these normal situations worse.

The two destroyers that suffered fatal collisions had some of the worst readiness and training ratings in the entire fleet. These ratings are there to spotlight ships, and their crews, that need the most attention from senior leadership, especially the fleet commander. That was not happening

telling your superiors they are wrong and you need more money or fewer things doesn't get get you promoted, so the ones who kept quiet stayed and the trouble makers quit, or were dropped (the rule is that if you don't get promoted, you end up retired).

this last part means that a lot of qualified people won't be there to fill in the gaps if they fire the laggards.

but will things get better?

.. since the new Secretary of Defense is a retired (in 2013) marine general with firsthand experience with what was going wrong in the navy, the admiral responsible was held accountable in the traditional way.

translation: the Admiral was fired. Marines tend to be more bad ass than a peacetime navy.

-----------------

we see a similar problem in the Catholic church, where a clueless Pope seems to want to be liked by his peers in the NWO (e.g. global warming and a green agenda that includes population control-- some of those pushing this have actually been welcomed at the Vatican) than worrying about little things like holiness in life and the ten commandments.

Yes, I know: the Pope does condemn abortion, immorality, and even corrupt politicians, but not as vigorously as he has his minions condemn The saying goes: The fish rots from the head down.

Meaning: When an organization or state fails, it is the leadership that is the root cause.

SP notes that part of the problem behind the recent accidents in the USNavy can be attributed to leadership problem. Yes, there is over work and transition, but having yes men in leadership has made these normal situations worse.

The two destroyers that suffered fatal collisions had some of the worst readiness and training ratings in the entire fleet. These ratings are there to spotlight ships, and their crews, that need the most attention from senior leadership, especially the fleet commander. That was not happening

telling your superiors they are wrong and you need more money or fewer things doesn't get get you promoted, so the ones who kept quiet stayed and the trouble makers quit, or were dropped (the rule is that if you don't get promoted, you end up retired).

this last part means that a lot of qualified people won't be there to fill in the gaps if they fire the laggards.

but will things get better?

.. since the new Secretary of Defense is a retired (in 2013) marine general with firsthand experience with what was going wrong in the navy, the admiral responsible was held accountable in the traditional way.

translation: the Admiral was fired. Marines tend to be more bad ass than a peacetime navy.

-----------------

we see a similar problem in the Catholic church, where a clueless Pope seems to want to be liked by his peers in the NWO (e.g. global warming and a green agenda that includes population control-- some of those pushing this have actually been welcomed at the Vatican) than worrying about little things like holiness in life and the ten commandments.

Yes, I know: the Pope does condemn abortion, immorality, and even corrupt politicians, but not as vigorously as he has his minions condemn bishops who say: "Wait a second: your trojan horse letter "the joy of sex" has confused not only people but a lot of bishops. Please clarify"

so the next step is obvious:
even Crux notes that the Pope has "overhauled the church's pro life beachead" by removing those pesky rigid ethicists.

ROME - Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed 45 news members to the Pontifical Academy for Life, long regarded as the Vatican’s primary beachhead for the most robustly pro-life voices in the Church, signaling that while he doesn’t intend to muzzle the pro-life argument, he wants a body less inclined to be pugnacious or rambunctious.

(italiccs mine).

The new members named by Francis include a mix of clergy and laity, and also feature a number of non-Catholics, including other Christians, followers of other religions, and non-believers.

what could go wrong? Uh oh...

 more HERE.

the members removed were too rigid, the archbishop said:

he has had to make logistical adjustments to the academy to cooperate closely with the Curial bodies, particularly the new Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

If one reads the explanation of the Cardinal in charge, and read between the lines, you get the impression that the moral fuzzyness of the Joy of sex is now being smuggled into the bioethics experts in the Vatican.

and we are already seeing the fruits of this moral fuzzyness: Father Z reports and translates:

The Belgian “We Kill You™” Brothers of Charity, are defying the Holy See to continue their policy of euthanasia for non-terminal psychiatric patients.. HERE

 Cardinal Caffarra who protested the Pope's letter had his speech read to a conference phrases it this way:

It is in the liberal principle that Newman individuates the principle factor of the reduction of the conscience to a simple personal opinion, which nobody has the authority to judge.

without guidelines, morality and ethics degenerates into "who am I to judge". Which sounds nice and compassionate, until you realize that ten percent of the population has sociopathic tendencies, and even those who want to be good are no longer taught right from wrong.


“The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer's soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness.” ― Albert Camus, The Plague
Niceness and goodness is not the same, as one tart tongued Catholic writer noted:

Flannery O'Connor... originated that seemingly paradoxical phrase in her introduction to a book called Memoir of Mary Ann, a book about a seriously ill and severely disfigured young girl cared for by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. ... O'Connor wrote: "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness, and tenderness leads to the gas chamber."

it was a non Catholic psychiatrist who wrote the book What ever happened to sin?

and I can think of a dozen quotes from the bible prophets about bad watchmen who don't guard the gates.

and maybe the Pope should read a book by a good atheist to figure out where his duty lies.

"Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down." -Albert Camus, The Plague, Part 2