Aa
Defender's of the Faith
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/december-11th-2015/vladimir-putins-holy-war/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/europe/vatican-steve-bannon-pope-francis.html?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/europe/vatican-steve-bannon-pope-francis.html?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/24/group-accuses-pope-francis-heresy/698087001/
"A group of Catholic scholars and clergy has accused Pope Francis of heresy in connection with a 2016 papal document that discusses divorce and remarriage, according to a 25-page letter made public by the group.
The letter, made public Saturday, asserts that portions of Francis’ document “The Joy of Love,” contains propositions which "contradict truths that are divinely revealed, and that Catholics must believe with the assent of divine faith.”
More than 60 priests, professors and others signed the letter, which accuses Francis of seven specific heresies because of the pope’s “words, deeds, and omissions” as well as specific passages in document.
The criticism centers on receipt of Communion by Catholics who have been civilly remarried. A spokesman for the Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts on the Catholic Church said the letter represents only a small minority of the church, and that it is unlikely to be met with any response from Francis.
Massimo Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, said the signatories represent a “tiny, extreme fringe of the opposition to Francis” and do not include any cardinals or bishops with formal standing in the Catholic Church.
“The Catholic Church that has more than 200 cardinals now and more than 5,000 bishops,” he said. “And they couldn’t find one.”
The only bishop who signed the letter is Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X, who experts said does not have formal standing in the church because he is from a breakaway group.
David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, said the letter is “akin to an online petition,” and is unlikely to have any effect.
“It’s a great headline anytime the pope is accused of heresy,” he said. “But these are really, kind of, the usual suspects of really far right types who have been upset with not only this pope, but other popes in recent years.”
Joseph Shaw, a religious scholar at Oxford University who signed the letter, said in a statement that it was first hand-delivered to Francis more than a month ago. The group only made it public after it did not receive a response.
"It is designed to make clear the importance of what is (at) stake," Shaw said, "and the urgency of keeping a correct view of these matters."
"A group of Catholic scholars and clergy has accused Pope Francis of heresy in connection with a 2016 papal document that discusses divorce and remarriage, according to a 25-page letter made public by the group.
The letter, made public Saturday, asserts that portions of Francis’ document “The Joy of Love,” contains propositions which "contradict truths that are divinely revealed, and that Catholics must believe with the assent of divine faith.”
More than 60 priests, professors and others signed the letter, which accuses Francis of seven specific heresies because of the pope’s “words, deeds, and omissions” as well as specific passages in document.
The criticism centers on receipt of Communion by Catholics who have been civilly remarried. A spokesman for the Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts on the Catholic Church said the letter represents only a small minority of the church, and that it is unlikely to be met with any response from Francis.
Massimo Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, said the signatories represent a “tiny, extreme fringe of the opposition to Francis” and do not include any cardinals or bishops with formal standing in the Catholic Church.
“The Catholic Church that has more than 200 cardinals now and more than 5,000 bishops,” he said. “And they couldn’t find one.”
The only bishop who signed the letter is Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X, who experts said does not have formal standing in the church because he is from a breakaway group.
David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, said the letter is “akin to an online petition,” and is unlikely to have any effect.
“It’s a great headline anytime the pope is accused of heresy,” he said. “But these are really, kind of, the usual suspects of really far right types who have been upset with not only this pope, but other popes in recent years.”
Joseph Shaw, a religious scholar at Oxford University who signed the letter, said in a statement that it was first hand-delivered to Francis more than a month ago. The group only made it public after it did not receive a response.
"It is designed to make clear the importance of what is (at) stake," Shaw said, "and the urgency of keeping a correct view of these matters."
Steve Bannon Carries Battles to Another Influential Hub: The Vatican
"When Stephen K. Bannon was still heading Breitbart News, he went to the Vatican to cover the canonization of John Paul II and make some friends. High on his list of people to meet was an archconservative American cardinal, Raymond Burke, who had openly clashed with Pope Francis.
In one of the cardinal’s antechambers, amid religious statues and book-lined walls, Cardinal Burke and Mr. Bannon — who is now President Trump’s anti-establishment eminence — bonded over their shared worldview. They saw Islam as threatening to overrun a prostrate West weakened by the erosion of traditional Christian values, and viewed themselves as unjustly ostracized by out-of-touch political elites.
“When you recognize someone who has sacrificed in order to remain true to his principles and who is fighting the same kind of battles in the cultural arena, in a different section of the battlefield, I’m not surprised there is a meeting of hearts,” said Benjamin Harnwell, a confidant of Cardinal Burke who arranged the 2014 meeting.
While Mr. Trump, a twice-divorced president who has boasted of groping women, may seem an unlikely ally of traditionalists in the Vatican, many of them regard his election and the ascendance of Mr. Bannon as potentially game-changing breakthroughs.
Just as Mr. Bannon has connected with far-right parties threatening to topple governments throughout Western Europe, he has also made common cause with elements in the Roman Catholic Church who oppose the direction Francis is taking them. Many share Mr. Bannon’s suspicion of Pope Francis as a dangerously misguided, and probably socialist, pontiff.
Until now, Francis has marginalized or demoted the traditionalists, notably Cardinal Burke, carrying out an inclusive agenda on migration, climate change and poverty that has made the pope a figure of unmatched global popularity, especially among liberals. Yet in a newly turbulent world, Francis is suddenly a lonelier figure. Where once Francis had a powerful ally in the White House in Barack Obama, now there is Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon, this new president’s ideological guru.
For many of the pope’s ideological opponents in and around the Vatican, who are fearful of a pontiff they consider outwardly avuncular but internally a ruthless wielder of absolute political power, this angry moment in history is an opportunity to derail what they see as a disastrous papal agenda. And in Mr. Trump, and more directly in Mr. Bannon, some self-described “Rad Trads” — or radical traditionalists — see an alternate leader who will stand up for traditional Christian values and against Muslim interlopers.
“There are huge areas where we and the pope do overlap, and as a loyal Catholic, I don’t want to spend my life fighting against the pope on issues where I won’t change his mind,” Mr. Harnwell said over a lunch of cannelloni. “Far more valuable for me would be spend time working constructively with Steve Bannon.”
He made it clear he was speaking for himself, not for the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative Catholic group that he founded, and insisted that he shared the pope’s goals of ensuring peace and ending poverty, just not his ideas on how to achieve it.
Mr. Bannon publicly articulated his worldview in remarks a few months after his meeting with Cardinal Burke, at a Vatican conference organized by Mr. Harnwell’s institute.
Speaking via video feed from Los Angeles, Mr. Bannon, a Catholic, held forth against rampant secularization, the existential threat of Islam, and a capitalism that had drifted from the moral foundations of Christianity.
That talk has garnered much attention, and approval by conservatives, for its explicit expression of Mr. Bannon’s vision. Less widely known are his efforts to cultivate strategic alliances with those in Rome who share his interpretation of a right-wing “church militant” theology.
Mr. Bannon’s visage, speeches and endorsement of Mr. Harnwell as “the smartest guy in Rome” are featured heavily on the website of Mr. Harnwell’s foundation. Mr. Trump’s senior adviser has maintained email contact with Cardinal Burke, according to Mr. Harnwell, who dropped by the cardinal’s residence after lunch. And another person with knowledge of Mr. Bannon’s current outreach said the White House official is personally calling his contacts in Rome for thoughts on who should be the Trump administration’s ambassador to the Holy See.
During Mr. Bannon’s April 2014 trip he courted Edward Pentin, a leading conservative Vatican reporter, as a potential correspondent in Rome for Breitbart, the website that is popular with the alt-right, a far-right movement that has attracted white supremacists.
“He really seemed to get the battles the church needs to fight,” said Mr. Pentin, the author of “The Rigging of a Vatican Synod?” a book asserting that Pope Francis and his supporters railroaded opponents. Chief among those battles, Mr. Pentin said, was Mr. Bannon’s focus on countering a “cultural Marxism” that had seeped into the church.
Since that visit and the meeting with Cardinal Burke — an experience that Daniel Fluette, the head of production for Breitbart, described as “incredibly powerful” for Mr. Bannon — Mr. Trump’s ideological strategist has maintained a focus on Rome.
Mr. Bannon returned to direct the documentary “Torchbearer,” in which the “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson contemplates the apocalyptic consequences of an eroding Christendom. Mr. Bannon also reunited with old friends, including Breitbart’s eventual Rome correspondent, Thomas Williams.
A former priest, Mr. Williams said that he used to have arguments with Mr. Bannon about whether the pope subscribed to a hard-left brand of liberation theology, with Mr. Bannon calling the pope a “socialist/communist.” Mr. Williams said he usually defended the pope, but that recent statements by Francis convinced him “Steve turned out to be right. That happens more often than not.”
Mr. Bannon’s private thoughts about the pope have at times surfaced in public.
On May 23, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Williams spoke about Pope Francis on the radio program Breitbart News Daily.
Discussing a Breitbart article about the new mayor of London titled “Pope Hails Election of Sadiq Khan, Celebrates Mass Muslim Migration Into Europe,” Mr. Bannon suggested that the pope “seems almost to be putting the responsibility on the working men and women of Italy and Europe et cetera, that they have to go out of their way to accommodate” migration.
Was the pope a global elitist, Mr. Bannon asked, “two or three steps removed from this?”
Many critics of Francis express similar views, but they are often scared to express it for fear of retribution from the pope, who, they say, has eyes and ears all over the Vatican.
Instead, the pope’s critics anonymously papered Rome over the weekend with posters of a grumpy-looking Francis above complaints about his removing and ignoring clerics and cardinals. “Where’s your mercy?” it asked.
Conservatives and traditionalists in the Vatican secretly pass around phony mock-ups of the Vatican’s official paper, L’Osservatore Romano, making fun of the pope. Or they spread a YouTube video critiquing the pope and his exhortation on love in the family, “Amoris Laetitia,” which many traditionalists consider Francis’ opening salvo against the doctrine of the church. Set to the music of “That’s Amore,” an aggrieved crooner sings, “When will we all be freed from this cruel tyranny, that’s Amoris” and “It’s the climate of fear engineered for four years, that’s Amoris.”
...............
"When Stephen K. Bannon was still heading Breitbart News, he went to the Vatican to cover the canonization of John Paul II and make some friends. High on his list of people to meet was an archconservative American cardinal, Raymond Burke, who had openly clashed with Pope Francis.
In one of the cardinal’s antechambers, amid religious statues and book-lined walls, Cardinal Burke and Mr. Bannon — who is now President Trump’s anti-establishment eminence — bonded over their shared worldview. They saw Islam as threatening to overrun a prostrate West weakened by the erosion of traditional Christian values, and viewed themselves as unjustly ostracized by out-of-touch political elites.
“When you recognize someone who has sacrificed in order to remain true to his principles and who is fighting the same kind of battles in the cultural arena, in a different section of the battlefield, I’m not surprised there is a meeting of hearts,” said Benjamin Harnwell, a confidant of Cardinal Burke who arranged the 2014 meeting.
While Mr. Trump, a twice-divorced president who has boasted of groping women, may seem an unlikely ally of traditionalists in the Vatican, many of them regard his election and the ascendance of Mr. Bannon as potentially game-changing breakthroughs.
Just as Mr. Bannon has connected with far-right parties threatening to topple governments throughout Western Europe, he has also made common cause with elements in the Roman Catholic Church who oppose the direction Francis is taking them. Many share Mr. Bannon’s suspicion of Pope Francis as a dangerously misguided, and probably socialist, pontiff.
Until now, Francis has marginalized or demoted the traditionalists, notably Cardinal Burke, carrying out an inclusive agenda on migration, climate change and poverty that has made the pope a figure of unmatched global popularity, especially among liberals. Yet in a newly turbulent world, Francis is suddenly a lonelier figure. Where once Francis had a powerful ally in the White House in Barack Obama, now there is Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon, this new president’s ideological guru.
For many of the pope’s ideological opponents in and around the Vatican, who are fearful of a pontiff they consider outwardly avuncular but internally a ruthless wielder of absolute political power, this angry moment in history is an opportunity to derail what they see as a disastrous papal agenda. And in Mr. Trump, and more directly in Mr. Bannon, some self-described “Rad Trads” — or radical traditionalists — see an alternate leader who will stand up for traditional Christian values and against Muslim interlopers.
“There are huge areas where we and the pope do overlap, and as a loyal Catholic, I don’t want to spend my life fighting against the pope on issues where I won’t change his mind,” Mr. Harnwell said over a lunch of cannelloni. “Far more valuable for me would be spend time working constructively with Steve Bannon.”
He made it clear he was speaking for himself, not for the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative Catholic group that he founded, and insisted that he shared the pope’s goals of ensuring peace and ending poverty, just not his ideas on how to achieve it.
Mr. Bannon publicly articulated his worldview in remarks a few months after his meeting with Cardinal Burke, at a Vatican conference organized by Mr. Harnwell’s institute.
Speaking via video feed from Los Angeles, Mr. Bannon, a Catholic, held forth against rampant secularization, the existential threat of Islam, and a capitalism that had drifted from the moral foundations of Christianity.
That talk has garnered much attention, and approval by conservatives, for its explicit expression of Mr. Bannon’s vision. Less widely known are his efforts to cultivate strategic alliances with those in Rome who share his interpretation of a right-wing “church militant” theology.
Mr. Bannon’s visage, speeches and endorsement of Mr. Harnwell as “the smartest guy in Rome” are featured heavily on the website of Mr. Harnwell’s foundation. Mr. Trump’s senior adviser has maintained email contact with Cardinal Burke, according to Mr. Harnwell, who dropped by the cardinal’s residence after lunch. And another person with knowledge of Mr. Bannon’s current outreach said the White House official is personally calling his contacts in Rome for thoughts on who should be the Trump administration’s ambassador to the Holy See.
During Mr. Bannon’s April 2014 trip he courted Edward Pentin, a leading conservative Vatican reporter, as a potential correspondent in Rome for Breitbart, the website that is popular with the alt-right, a far-right movement that has attracted white supremacists.
“He really seemed to get the battles the church needs to fight,” said Mr. Pentin, the author of “The Rigging of a Vatican Synod?” a book asserting that Pope Francis and his supporters railroaded opponents. Chief among those battles, Mr. Pentin said, was Mr. Bannon’s focus on countering a “cultural Marxism” that had seeped into the church.
Since that visit and the meeting with Cardinal Burke — an experience that Daniel Fluette, the head of production for Breitbart, described as “incredibly powerful” for Mr. Bannon — Mr. Trump’s ideological strategist has maintained a focus on Rome.
Mr. Bannon returned to direct the documentary “Torchbearer,” in which the “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson contemplates the apocalyptic consequences of an eroding Christendom. Mr. Bannon also reunited with old friends, including Breitbart’s eventual Rome correspondent, Thomas Williams.
A former priest, Mr. Williams said that he used to have arguments with Mr. Bannon about whether the pope subscribed to a hard-left brand of liberation theology, with Mr. Bannon calling the pope a “socialist/communist.” Mr. Williams said he usually defended the pope, but that recent statements by Francis convinced him “Steve turned out to be right. That happens more often than not.”
Mr. Bannon’s private thoughts about the pope have at times surfaced in public.
On May 23, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Williams spoke about Pope Francis on the radio program Breitbart News Daily.
Discussing a Breitbart article about the new mayor of London titled “Pope Hails Election of Sadiq Khan, Celebrates Mass Muslim Migration Into Europe,” Mr. Bannon suggested that the pope “seems almost to be putting the responsibility on the working men and women of Italy and Europe et cetera, that they have to go out of their way to accommodate” migration.
Was the pope a global elitist, Mr. Bannon asked, “two or three steps removed from this?”
Many critics of Francis express similar views, but they are often scared to express it for fear of retribution from the pope, who, they say, has eyes and ears all over the Vatican.
Instead, the pope’s critics anonymously papered Rome over the weekend with posters of a grumpy-looking Francis above complaints about his removing and ignoring clerics and cardinals. “Where’s your mercy?” it asked.
Conservatives and traditionalists in the Vatican secretly pass around phony mock-ups of the Vatican’s official paper, L’Osservatore Romano, making fun of the pope. Or they spread a YouTube video critiquing the pope and his exhortation on love in the family, “Amoris Laetitia,” which many traditionalists consider Francis’ opening salvo against the doctrine of the church. Set to the music of “That’s Amore,” an aggrieved crooner sings, “When will we all be freed from this cruel tyranny, that’s Amoris” and “It’s the climate of fear engineered for four years, that’s Amoris.”
...............
Pope Francis Targeted by ‘Fake News’
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-targeted-fake-news-amid-tensions-conservative-catholics-n719326
"A fake front page of the Vatican's official newspaper was sent to cardinals and bishops by an anonymous source this week as part of what appears to be an ongoing campaign to undermine Pope Francis.
The page, obtained by NBC News, purports to be the front of the Osservatore Romano and contains a spoof interview with the 80-year-old pontiff under the headline in Italian, "He answered!"
In the imaginary interview, the pope addresses a controversial request from four cardinals to clarify his position on whether divorced and remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion. The pope supposedly answers "yes and no" to the same question — casting doubt over whether he has a clear view on the issue.
Last year, four prominent cardinals wrote to Francis requesting clarification on his teachings on family and moral issues. The cardinals took the unusual step of making their request public, as the pope did not reply.
The fake news story comes a week after walls around Rome were festooned with illegal posters criticizing some of the pope's recent actions.
The posters showed an image of a stern-looking Francis above the question: "Eh, Francis, you've commissioned congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, you've ignored cardinals ... but where's your mercy?"
The posters took issue with Francis' recent actions which affected conservative Catholic groups. Police launched an investigation using closed-circuit cameras into the conservative circles believed responsible, the ANSA news agency said.
It is unclear whether the fake news story is being investigated as well.
The incidents underscore the tensions between Francis and some conservative elements of the Catholic Church. The pope's calls for a less strict church that is more compassionate toward "imperfect" members, such as those who divorced and remarried, has not been welcomed by some conservative members.
"Francis is not the first pontiff to fall victim of rumors and fabrications. Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI were all unfairly criticized at some stage. What's new here is the way the rumors are spread. It's a sign of the times," Antonio Spadaro, the editor-in-chief of the Jesuit newspaper Civiltà Cattolica, told NBC News.
"This is the proof that the pope has enemies and his role as a moral and religious leader is unsettling to some," he added.
A source at the Vatican who spoke on the condition of anonymity, however, downplayed the latest stunt as harmless: "It wasn't done in bad taste. It's quite funny, actually. We are not worried."
This is not the first time Francis has been the subject of inaccurate reports. In 2015, the Quotidiano Nazionale newspaper reported, wrongly, that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor right before a much anticipated and debated Synod on the Family.
Last Sunday, during his weekly prayer in St. Peter's Square, Francis told the faithful that Christians should turn away from "the polluting germs of selfishness, envy and malicious gossip."
But, as Francis suggested to Spadaro in an interview to be published Saturday in Civiltà Cattolica, he is not losing sleep over it.
"There is corruption in the Vatican, but I am at peace, if there is a problem, I write a note to St. Joseph and put it under a statue I have in my room," Francis said. "This is why I sleep well at night: it is God's grace."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-targeted-fake-news-amid-tensions-conservative-catholics-n719326
"A fake front page of the Vatican's official newspaper was sent to cardinals and bishops by an anonymous source this week as part of what appears to be an ongoing campaign to undermine Pope Francis.
The page, obtained by NBC News, purports to be the front of the Osservatore Romano and contains a spoof interview with the 80-year-old pontiff under the headline in Italian, "He answered!"
In the imaginary interview, the pope addresses a controversial request from four cardinals to clarify his position on whether divorced and remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion. The pope supposedly answers "yes and no" to the same question — casting doubt over whether he has a clear view on the issue.
Last year, four prominent cardinals wrote to Francis requesting clarification on his teachings on family and moral issues. The cardinals took the unusual step of making their request public, as the pope did not reply.
The fake news story comes a week after walls around Rome were festooned with illegal posters criticizing some of the pope's recent actions.
The posters showed an image of a stern-looking Francis above the question: "Eh, Francis, you've commissioned congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, you've ignored cardinals ... but where's your mercy?"
The posters took issue with Francis' recent actions which affected conservative Catholic groups. Police launched an investigation using closed-circuit cameras into the conservative circles believed responsible, the ANSA news agency said.
It is unclear whether the fake news story is being investigated as well.
The incidents underscore the tensions between Francis and some conservative elements of the Catholic Church. The pope's calls for a less strict church that is more compassionate toward "imperfect" members, such as those who divorced and remarried, has not been welcomed by some conservative members.
"Francis is not the first pontiff to fall victim of rumors and fabrications. Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI were all unfairly criticized at some stage. What's new here is the way the rumors are spread. It's a sign of the times," Antonio Spadaro, the editor-in-chief of the Jesuit newspaper Civiltà Cattolica, told NBC News.
"This is the proof that the pope has enemies and his role as a moral and religious leader is unsettling to some," he added.
A source at the Vatican who spoke on the condition of anonymity, however, downplayed the latest stunt as harmless: "It wasn't done in bad taste. It's quite funny, actually. We are not worried."
This is not the first time Francis has been the subject of inaccurate reports. In 2015, the Quotidiano Nazionale newspaper reported, wrongly, that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor right before a much anticipated and debated Synod on the Family.
Last Sunday, during his weekly prayer in St. Peter's Square, Francis told the faithful that Christians should turn away from "the polluting germs of selfishness, envy and malicious gossip."
But, as Francis suggested to Spadaro in an interview to be published Saturday in Civiltà Cattolica, he is not losing sleep over it.
"There is corruption in the Vatican, but I am at peace, if there is a problem, I write a note to St. Joseph and put it under a statue I have in my room," Francis said. "This is why I sleep well at night: it is God's grace."
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