Popes Have Many Friends

Jezebel at the time of her meeting with the bishop.

The old slut who seduced an Argentinian bishop (certainly not the best of them, either; in the end, it takes two to tango) up to the point of him leaving the habit is the last one of those who claim vicinity to Pope Francis. The female (please let us not call these people “ladies”, or “women”; ask your grand-grandmother how she would call the female, and know she is right) is now well in her Eighties and on a wheelchair (we know the Pontiff loves wheelchairs), but it does not look like age had any improving effect on her. At her ripe age, the female now claims not only she is thickest friends with the Pope (phone call once a week, like yours truly with his parents), but also that the Pope might now move towards the abolition of priest celibacy. Well, she must know something of celibacy…

One understand at what the old female is aiming: if priests are allowed to marry, she will not be a slut anymore, but a love heroine ahead of the times. Like a suffragette with the suffrage, or Martin Luther King without the racial discrimination. Or so she thinks, and it's a pity no one informed her that celibacy for bishops is de fide, and not even an extremely ill-instructed Pope like Francis (see his utterances concerning capital punishment, if confirmed) will ever be able to do anything for her reputation in this or, I am afraid, any other respect.

Popes have many friends, but I would very much warn from taking the words of self-appointed friends at face value. There was the Anglican chap saying the then Archbishop had told him “the Church needs them as Anglicans”, and this female is now basically saying the Pope thinks the Church needs her as slut. I would discount the second as heavily as I discounted the first, unless and until the Pope says something in the matter of priest celibacy as Pope.

As to the many embarrassing statement apparently contained in his equally embarrassing book written together with his pro-faggotry Jewish pal, it's for him to put a patch on his stupidities as well as he can, but the PC statements of an ill-thinking, ill-instructed Cardinal (make no mistake, many of those: search this blog for Policarpo, Woelki, or Meisner to mention only three; unless it's worse of course) can on no account be automatically considered the programme and platform of the now Pope Bergoglio.

Pope Francis was, so much is clear, the wrong type of Cardinal on many issues (including his book-writing pals, his liturgical brainlessness and his ecu-maniacal attitude). His past sons are now causing a run to him from the side of people who want to highjack him for their own purposes, like the mad nuns. All of them aiming at creating a new image for themselves (the Anglican chap, and now this old pathetic vecchia malvissuta) or to push their cause.

I do not think the mad nuns will be the only ones to get disappointed.

Mundabor

 

Cardinal O’Brien Is In Need Of Instruction.

The most remarkable trait of V II prelates seems to be that very few of them manage to know Catholic teaching with the same level of expertise of, say, a thirteen-year-old  boy circa 1953. 

The last one to make an ass of himself is Cardinal O’Brien. 

It is today reported by the “Guardian”, the “Homograph”, the “Puffington Post” and many others and many others that the Cardinal now says the Church should allow priests to marry. 

His words according to the above mentioned “Homograph”: 

 ”In my time there was no choice and you didn’t really consider it too much, it was part of being a priest. When I was a young boy, the priest didn’t get married and that was it.

“I would be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should get married.

“It is a free world and I realise that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood and felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and

raise a family of their own.”

Yours truly, who was never married and – sinner as he is, of course – never found it so difficult to cope with celibacy (particularly after seeing some of those who are married; but that’s another matter entirely…), is rather stunned at these affirmations for the following reasons:

1)  Last time I looked, it was de fide that a priest cannot marry. One can become priest when he is already married (look at the Anglican converts: for the Church they are no priests, and therefore they can become priests whilst being previously married) but no one can marry after he has become a priest.  One of us two is wrong, then, and I think it’s the one with the funny hat… 

2)  ”It is a free world”. What on earth does this mean. Freedom isn’t anarchy or licence; celibacy isn’t more or less difficult under Cameron than under Mussolini; I do not know of many contemporary priests forced to take orders in a dictatorship and now finding it difficult to cope with celibacy because there is freedom. 

3) “In my time there was no choice”. Well neither there is now, actually. 

4) “You didn’t really consider it too much”. What? The man took a solemn vow of celibacy and now he tells us that was something one just didn’t think about? And then they say today’s youth is irresponsible? Who made this man Cardinal? (Answer: John Paul II…).

5) “companion etc”. Look, I though that a priest was married to the Church? That the celibacy is what allow himself to be completely dedicated to his life of service without having extremely time-consuming (and emotionally exacting) distractions like, erm, “a woman to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own”? That this dedication and self-sacrifice is exactly was makes the priest respected in his community, and trusted to care for Christ and for his sheep above all else? Am I wrong?

6) “found it difficult to cope with celibacy aas they lived out their priesthood”. Oh for heaven’s sake. Are we talking of men or children? You make choices like a man, you carry on with your life and the choices you have made  like a man.  Can a soldier say “I am tired of Afghanistan”?  

7) “I would be very happy etc..”. Dear Cardinal, the opportunity is already there. Either one wants to become a priest, and then he cannot marry. Or he wants to marry, and then he cannot become a priest.  A priest can never, could never, will never “have the opportunity of considering”. Once a celibate priest, always a celibate priest and no, the “free world” is nothing to do with it. 

In this very matter, it is refreshing to read that a couple of very good priest bloggers have become rather impatient with the Cardinal’s remark. I understand them very well, then the Cardinal lets all celibate priests look like people who didn’t really think about it, have no clear idea why they are celibate, and should well reflect a bit whether to have the “opportunity to consider” wouldn’t be a fine thing indeed.

For one, Father Ray Blake has a rather explicit post  on the matter. Among the commentators, EF Pastor Emeritus – another excellent priest and blogger – is no less explicit. Third is Father Hunwicke, a convert from the Anglicans (and therefore, crucially, not a priest when he married),  who says it very beautifully with the words: “Wherever did the Cardinal, whom I greatly respect, get the idea that priests like me are allowed to make up our own mind about getting married?”

Interesting question, actually.

Wherever? If you ask me, from the madness called Vatican II, that wanting to “renew” everything ends up wanting to demolish, sooner or later, everything. That’s where. 

Mundabor