13 April 2015

Francis follows Benedict; what will the Wolves make of it?

As an unashamed admirer of the emeritus Roman Pontiff, I feel dead chuffed that his successor has chosen to follow right in his footsteps in two highly significant ways ... and on the same glorious day!

(1) Pope Benedict fearlessly delivered his Regensburg lecture, undeterred by the probability of uproar from the Wolves. And now our beloved Holy Father Pope Francis has shown his fearless solidarity with the magnificent Christian Armenian people by refusing to be be bullied by the Turkish Government into Holocaust Denial. Let us hope that pusillanimous Western governments will have the guts to follow his courageous lead. It will be amusing to see if the Wolves who attacked Benedict after Regensburg will deploy the same splenetic malevolence against Francis. I'm betting that they won't, because so many of them were endlessly devising flimsy pretexts for attacking Benedict XVI, but have invested a lot of their own tenuous credibility in their confected image of "Good Pope Francis". Armeniagate, of course, will be argued to be subtly different from Regensburggate!!


(2) Pope Benedict also received endless flak from the Wolves for Mercifully remitting the excommunications upon the four bishops consecrated by His Excellency the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. They particularly went into paroxysms of their usual simulated fury about the Merciful inclusion in this package of Bishop Williamson, reputed to be a Holocaust Denier. More recently, His Wykehamist Excellency has re-incurred, only last month, the same excommunication latae sententiae for consecrating another bishop absque mandato Apostolicae Sedis. But now Pope Francis, even more Merciful than Pope Benedict, is to send out confessarii with extensive faculties to absolve even the matters most specially reserved to the Holy See. So all that Richard Williamson will need to do is to catch an early train in from Broadstairs (just eighty minutes to S Pancras) and get into the queue in Westminster Cathedral when one of these Grand Penitentiaries is installed there hard at work absolving ("And finally, Father, I have performed Episcopal Consecration without a Mandate from the Holy See". "Male or female, my son, and how many times?" "Male ... once." "... te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis suspensionis et interdicti, in quantum possum et tu indiges ... "). Just the cost of a single train ticket! Can ripping up into tiny pieces a major reserved papal excommunication ever have been such a total doddle? Oodles of Mercy for Williamson toties quoties!!! How will the Wolves handle that possibility? By discovering, d'you think, some handy canonical small-print meaning that the Jubilaeic Mercy will be just a trifle less all-embracing than the Holy Father clearly intends? Wait for it!

10 comments:

Pontiacprince said...

Canada recognized the Armenian genocide by a vote of 153-68 in 2004.

Joshua said...

A certain Dominican (now departed) is reported to have ordained a female dog using the Cranmerian Ordinal, in response to the Anglican Church of Australia's decision to allow the ordination of women. Ought he to have confessed that?

Anonymous said...

I once studied the Armenian tragedy in college and went back and forth on whether the mass killings & deportation should be called 'genocide' or whether some other term would be more accurate. I concluded 'genocide' fit the facts, despite legitimate debate about the exact number killed by which cause & the organization (or lack thereof) of the extermination.

Not terming the mass killings and deportation 'genocide' has been a diplomatic nicety in deference to the secular government in Istanbul. Considering the Islamist reforms under Erdogan, can even that bit of realpolitik still be defended?

Anonymous said...

Of course the Turkish capital is Ankara, not Istanbul, as I had stated. I guess Atatürk's choice in the matter was a powerful signal of his break from the past. I wonder if it will move back some day, and why?

TLMWx said...

Cardinal Keith O'Brien , Bishop Conry..... the rag tag fugitive fleet of recalcitrants once more part of our motley crew? Oh how the imagination explodes with possibilities!

Boko Fittleworth said...

I'm not crazy about making it easier for a priest who breaks the Confessional Seal, or does some of those other things, to be back in the saddle. Forgiven, sure, but I hope there are still penalties and a loss of the faculty abused.

Catherina of Siena said...

Brilliant use of your Poirot-like little grey cells, Fr Hunwicke. Thanks. Could not help enjoying this blog post. Logic galore.

By the way, I have never attended a "Latin Mass" or have any access to even a whiff of a SSPX-parish. Just an ordinary ex-Calvinist attending NO Mass like anyone else.

Have you seen the latest news from Argentine re: this Society? Fr Z and Rorate are the sources. Not that I understand all the detail.

PS: Perhaps we have to remind ourselves that BXVI's Regensburg lecture had much more than the Islam in mind. It won't help if this lecture is suddenly dusted off by pushers of contrasting and various "agendas" without discerning the fundamental theses/thesis of that excellent piece of thinking.
Not that you fall into this trap. But others do, lately.

Your blog posts give me tremendous joy, also because they challenges my own "ideologies" and thinking.

Thank you.

Liam Ronan said...

There is something about Francis' idea of creating these "Missionaries of Mercy" that puts me in mind of a distortion of elements of the plot of Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson's work "Lord of the World."

I know Francis has referenced this work at least twice, perhaps more, and, I know you'll think I'm mad, but there is something about the setting and workings of that novel that seems to fascinate Francis as though it were prescient of the times and he left his looking glasses in Argentina.

He's frightening and is in need of much prayer. I expect he will have read the complete Third Secret of Fatima by now.

Just silly musings on my part, I imagine.

Arsenio Lupin said...

Argentina also recognizes the Armenian genocide, and April 24 is a non working day for "every employee or government officer of Armenian provenance" (excuse my poor english)

GOR said...

Yes Father, the confesarii vagantes is an interesting initiative on the part of our Holy Father. Nisi fallor, in the past the process of dealing with reserved sins went though the Ordinary and thence to the Holy See - if reserved to the Supreme Pontiff – with faculties being imparted via the Ordinary to the confessor.

One wonders how the new process will play out in practice? A ‘designated confessional’…? A sign over the confessional door…? Reserved times…?

At confession on Good Friday the line was moving very slowly, leading me to remark later to my wife that perhaps we should have an Express Confessional, as in: “10 sins or less in this line…” Just a thought.