The Alternative Blessed Virgin

Believe it or not, these words come from a Pope:

The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not… She was silent, but in her heart, how many things told the Lord! ‘You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I see him there!’ Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: ‘Lies! I was deceived!’

We are being punished with a Pope who does not read the Gospel, does not recite memorised prayers, and does not believe in what has been handed down to him. In fact, one can make a rather convincing case that we have a Pope who does not believe in God; certainly not in your grandmother’s.

The last example of this sad state of things emerged whilst I was on holiday, with my teeth happily sinking in the panettone. Still, I do think I should spend some words on this, lest a bus should knock me down and put an end to this vale of tears and I were to be told, in the other world, that I have remained silent about this episode in this one.

The way I always understood it, the Blessed Virgin is a perfect example of complete trust and utter obedience. In fact, it is this trust and obedience that has been not only extolled during the centuries, but brought as example to, among others, countless girls and young women in their formative years. It should be the most obvious thing on this planet that the Blessed Virgin does not doubt, does not complain, and does not feel betrayed by God. Therefore, the very idea that the Blessed Virgin may ever have had the desire to say “Lies! I was deceived!” strikes me as impious and utterly offensive of the Blessed Virgin.

When the Archangel Gabriel appears to her at the Annunciation she poses one very natural question, a question born of the obvious circumstances but certainly not out of doubt; and upon receiving the answer she promptly and unquestioningly accepts God’s will: a decision, by the way, which clearly puts her reputation on the line, and which requires a courage and – let us say it again – an unquestioning abandonment to God’s will, the like of which is barely imaginable in these times of widespread licence, when even Popes think they should not “judge”. Mary, therefore, accepts without questioning something apt to put her reputation in the gravest danger. She says: “Fiat”, not: “wait a minute”, or “mom told me never to trust what angels say”, or: “wow, just wow”. She also does not react with: “dear angel, at least promise me that there will be no suffering”, or: “I accept only if my son is going to live a splendid life and become the Roman Emperor, or such like”. She is the blessed Virgin, you see. Not a freaking Jesuit.

She simply obeys: she accepts God’s will without “ifs” or “buts”. Wonderful obedience, absolute trust, spotless abandonment to God’s will.

She is also, as Francis might or might not remember, free from original sin; which, linked to her own saintliness, makes it rather illogical to even think she might have had a doubting mind concerning everything God sent her way.

We see this in the Gospels pretty much everytime Mary is mentioned. She is told by Simeon in very plain words that a sword will pierce her heart. This is one of the “seven sorrows of Mary”, of which Francis must also have lost memory; a devotion meant to help the Neopelagian faithful to remember that Mary had the cross constantly in front of her. She is woken up in the middle of the night and must flee her own home in great haste, with a little baby, going towards an uncertain future in a foreign land (yes, this is another one of the seven sorrows).  She must undergo a most painful search for her missing son (yet another one). Never do we find in the Gospel even a hint that Mary may have ever entertained a shred of doubt, revolt, disagreement, feelings of anger, disillusionment, or complaint about her own lot.

Mary keeps all in her heart. She does not forget Simeon’s words, and which mother could! She is Love, Obedience, Trust itself. Not only the Gospels, but two thousand years of Catholic Tradition tell us so. Actually, I doubt even Protestants would see things differently, at least if they still have a shred of sound Christian thinking left in them.

Not so for our humble Pope, Francis The Little. Completely oblivious of everything from Catholic dogma to the Gospels to Catholic tradition, he reshapes the Blessed Virgin according to his own fantasies in the same way as he has done it with pretty much everything else.

As I have already stated, Francis probably does not believe in God. If he does, it does not appear to be the God in which Catholics believe, and in fact it appears to be a God perfectly fine with, among other things, Jews not believing in the Divinity of His Son. If Francis does believe in the God of the Catholics, then he simply cannot think, and does not know what he says.

Francis therefore either does not believe, or doubts, or just doesn’t know jack. As a consequence, he proceeds to adapt everything Christian to his own confused way of thinking. As he doubts or does not believe himself, “excessive doctrinal security” is a problem. If he has doubts, everyone must have doubts. Even the Blessed Virgin!

In Francis’ world, unquestioning trust in God and perfect obedience are suspiciously Neopelagian, or Promethean, or whatever stupid adjective he can concoct to describe it. To him, Francis-ness is next to godliness, and it is the measure of humble orthodoxy. Whatever deviates from Francisthought must be corrected and made new; again: not stopping in front of the Blessed Virgin herself.

Francis’ Blessed Virgin is a woman from whom the whole essence of the Blessed Virgin has been removed, in order that both him and the women of the favela may not be challenged with an example too different from themselves. Francis’ fantasy creature feels – “perhaps”, he has the goodness to add, albeit only concerning the most absurd statement; relativism doubts even its own rubbish – betrayed, short changed, even lied to; she feels she was encouraged to undertake her task under false pretences; she thinks she has been advisedly deceived.

Once again, this man boggles the mind. His insolence is breathtaking. His ignorance will become the stuff of legends.

At times I think Francis might have an alcohol problem. This would explain his absurd and confused statements, together with his uncontrolled, confused, rambling way of talking; this would provide not an excuse, but at least a cause for all the unspeakable rubbish the man continues to spit out of his very humble cuff. And in fact, if any normal Catholic in possession of a normal Catholic instruction were to say not one half, but one fifth of what Francis has been saying since March his sobriety and his sanity would be openly questioned by those around him. Most certainly, no sensible Catholic would want to attend Mass in the church of a parish priest like that.

Alas, I do not think the man has an alcohol problem. His problem is his extreme form of Jesuitism, his being so much in love with himself he forgets even the most elementary decency, his strong Peronist ideology clearly shaping his Catholicism in the most minute details, his vast ignorance of even his own vast ignorance, and his boundless arrogance now fueled by a position in which every off-the-cuff statement is saluted as a daring innovation rather than another alarming example of scandalous ignorance.

The entire secular world is telling Francis he should feel free to make Christianity new, and he has the, ahem, humbleness to think he is just the man for the job; he seem to believe he is the man compared to whom even the worst antics of V II will be considered merely an appetizer. I have never heard a public man so persuaded he is just what the doctor ordered for the welfare of humanity; not even Berlusconi in his worst day would think he can tamper with the Blessed Virgin.

Francis is alternative to Catholicism. Almost every week we get new evidence for this. Should we be surprised he has even created a fantasy Blessed Virgin?

Pray for the man, and pray that he may stop being such a disgrace. One way or the other.

Mundabor