Lotus Flowers In The Mud: Francis’ Papacy From A Blogger’s Perspective

First, let us see some numbers. March 2013 (conclave month, with all the hype) was my all-time record at 65,000 page views during the month. The next record came in July at 75,000, followed by August at 77,000 as Francis' strangeness grew disquietingly stranger with every passing week. September saw little activity in the first week, but Bergoglio's exploits with the 14,000 words interview and the letter to Scalfari still pushed the pageviews at 85,000, solidly a new record. At the beginning of October the mother of all scandals to date, the interview with Scalfari, hit the newsstands and caused a surge in my – and, I am sure, everyone else's – pageviews. The month ended yesterday at 128,000 pageviews, eclipsing all previous records.

The pattern is always the same: every bout of Bergoglism causes a big wave of pageviews. After some days the wave goes by, and the pageviews stabilise at “normal”; a normal, though, that is now higher than the “normal” level of before the wave.

What happens is, in my eyes, very clear: Francis causes scandal, and this moves people to google, or google more, or get information beyond their usual channels. They discover new sites. Some of them stumble here. After some days the wave of new visitors has ebbed, but some of them stay and keep reading the site more or less regularly according to their interest in Catholic matters, their Catholic orientation and, obviously, whether they like the, ahem, refreshingly blunt style of this blog.

At first sight, therefore, one might think that the “Bergoglio effect” is good, as it causes many people to confront themselves with Catholicism and to be put in contact – on my blog or on countless others – with sound Catholic thinking. Alas, the reality is, I am afraid, very much different.

Firstly, consider that it is very difficult to land on my blog during one's Internet navigation unless one is following, so to speak, a conservative route in his navigation. My blog posts are tagged “Catholicism”, “conservative Catholicism” and “traditional Catholicism”, and most of those who chance to moor on my little blogging island already know what they are after and what they can expect. Much, much bigger must be the number of those who search the news about the Pope in a neutral or progressive way (say: “Pope Francis + Gay”), and are served with links to all the major faggot newspapers, invariably followed by the Patheos-style blogs who must be even more dangerous and confusing to them. Most of these people will, it is licit to suppose, only be on the Internet looking for reassurance about their own home-made Catholicism, and three or four clicks will rapidly persuade them the Pope “doesn't judge” the “gays”, or “it is fine if you follow your conscience”, or “good atheists will be saved”.

The damage will be big and durable here, because after being so assuaged these people will simply put the information in their drawer of convenient slogans, to be cherished forever and be used whenever necessary. The same reasoning obviously applies to the atheist and anticlerical troops of all colours and shades.

Then there is what must be the vast majority of the recipients of Francis' ramblings: those who are satisfied with the article they read on their favourite newspaper, or with the headlines, or with the ten-seconds radio report, or even with what they hear everyone is talking about: the global narrative of the “Pope who doesn't judge gays”, & Co.

In the end, it is reasonable to assume for one who finds his Catholicism strengthened by Francis' heresies and assorted stupidities there are very many, probably dozens, perhaps more still, who are confused or led astray. You can easily infer from this what damage many years of Bergoglism will inflict to Holy Mother Church. This, even before considering his appointments to Cardinal, Bishop, etc.; a field on which, if the Golpe against the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate is anything to go by, we will see Francis' subversive activity at its worst.

Summa summarum, it can be safely said the Catholic blogger's perspective seems encouraging at first, but is in the end merely the tale of beautiful but rare lotus flowers growing in the lake of mud Francis is creating. Very many are those who will be helped by Bergoglism to drawn in the mud, and the beautiful lotus flowers we can clearly see cannot distract from the desolated landscape in front of us.

This papacy is an unmitigated disgrace. A papacy made for the Obamas, the Scalfaris and the Elton Johns of this world.

We can't avoid the lake of mud. Let us try, then, to grow in Catholic faith so that we may become, and die as, lotus flowers offered to God in the midst of the “who am I to judge” lake of stupidity.

Mundabor