What Socci Does Not Say

Not so easy after all…

If you have not done so already, you may do much worse than visit Rorate Caeli and read there the excellent translation of the article from Antonio Socci appeared on Libero some days ago.

Socci says many very useful things, and he says them very well. He quotes figures, and the figures alone tell you everything you need to know about the real causes of the shameless persecution of the FFI. 

V II is bankrupt. The persecution of the FFI is the necessary step to avoid the bankruptcy becoming too public. Others will follow. If I were a FSSP priest, I wouldn’t sleep very well right now. Only the SSPX, with his presence and courageous witness for sound Catholicism, prevents the total annihilation of every conservative stream within the Church.

Still, this blog post is not about what Socci says. It is about what Socci does not say. But what he does not say, he screams. I quote:

No-one can believe that the Pontiff of tenderness wanted or authorized such a thing. The contradiction between his teaching (“love and kindness, not beatings”) and the concrete practice, which brings to mind the ghosts of the Inquisition, would be too great.

This, my friends, is a very heavy blow, the Italian way.

No one can believe that the Pope wanted or authorised this Stalinian purge, Socci says. If it were to be true, it would be hypocrisy beyond belief, the epitome of double-tongued falseness. Still, Socci knows – like the rest of the planet that follows such events – that Pope Francis has already invited the friars to just shut up and do what they are told. Socci writes about these matters professionally. Make no mistake: he is very informed.

Of course Francis wanted. Of course Francis authorised. To think seriously that Francis is not the man who wanted and authorised this Golpe is tantamount to say that Caesar did not want to invade Gallia, or Hitler Poland.

Socci knows it. He knows that his readers know it, too. His words must resound to the ears of very many of his Italian readers as a massive indictment of this Papacy. An indictment not openly told, and yet screamed.

One thing is clear: Francis will not have an undisturbed media parade. The voices who speak against madness are rapidly reaching the well-educated mainstream. God willing, in two or three years’ time it will be common knowledge Catholics who care don’t like or esteem Francis. 

Francis will always be popular, because populism always makes one popular among the stupid, the lazy and the cowards, whose numbers are frightful. But there will be no triumphal march. There will be a divisive Papacy instead, with open dissent from the many voices speaking for orthodoxy; and these voices will become more and more vocal – whilst still, alas, remaining a clear minority – as Francis appoints his Bergoglini as Bishops and Cardinals, and continues to ravage the Church.

Perhaps Francis thought an iron cross, black shoes, a smaller car and Wheelchair Galore would give him an unassailable position as a modern Robin Hood; a sort of modern Garibaldi whom it would be suicide to criticise. 

It may well work in Argentina, where populism seems to be a second religion. In Europe, it’s another pair of… shoes.

Mundabor