Shaping The Church
The justified scandal about the way the Bishop of Rome undermines Catholicism must not let us forget that, in the everyday life of the Church, the real changes on the ground are actually brought about not by the things a Pope says, but rather by the people he appoints.
You could put it in another way, and argue that if Francis were very sound in his appointments – mainly those of bishops and cardinals, but also think of those within the Curia – the negative effects of his blunders would be in time vastly reduced (or even neutralised) by a generation of sound bishops taking care that things are made properly in their own diocese, and of sound Cardinals taking care that this policy continues after the end of the present Papacy.
If, on the other hand, a Pope is mediocre in his appointment of Bishops and Cardinals, even his best orthodoxy of speech and saintliness of behaviour will not be able to arrest the decay of the Church, with vast territories slowly being run in the wrong way, and mediocre Cardinals ensuring this continues to be so with the next pontificates.
We begin, therefore, to understand the kind of devastation both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have caused. Pick any horrible Cardinal of your choice (before the next batch of Francis' appointees is officially installed), and you will discover he has invariably been appointed by one of the two. Pick almost everyone of the vastly horrible 8,000 (if memory serves) bishops in charge of a diocese, and you will see exactly the same.
From Daneels to Mahony and from Schoenborn to Ravasi, the present generation of Cardinals has been entirely created by JP II or Benedict XVI. Entirely. The same can be said, with very few exceptions, of bishops and archbishops, from the powerful ones like Zollitsch to the rather obscure ones like Nourrichard. These are the people who shape the Church's life on the ground; who encourage good priests or antagonise them; who decide on the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, or lack thereof; who talk mainly of Judgment or of social issues; who promote the Sacraments or their neglect; who foster, or suffocate, vocations, and so on.
Think of all this, and tell me whether the two men – one of whom soon to be canonised, then by the grace of God Paradise is not prevented by a papacy rich in mistakes – are not the two main culprits for the current woes of the Church, starting from Francis and all the way down to the stupid, cowardly, or outright heretical priest in the church near you.
Mundabor
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Posted on January 15, 2014, in Catholicism, Conservative Catholicism, Traditional Catholicism and tagged Bishop Nourrichard, Cardinal Mahony, V II. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
Mundabor's Blog 
Before his resignation, you’d have found no greater advocate of Benedict than me. Clearly, he was not a great pope like those who came before the Council, but I thought he’d finally set in motion a return to that time. I figured it would take decades, but the goal was in sight.
Now, I look on Benedict’s time as just another mediocrity of the post VCII era. His resignation, at the very moment when things were beginning to change, indicates to me the smoke of Satan is thicker now than it’s ever been. Because of his selfish decision, we’ve gotten a pure “spirit of VCII” modernist in Bishop Bergoglio.
Those who think Bergoglio doesn’t intend change even more massive than what Paul VI wrought are fooling themselves. He is a modernist. What makes it all the worse is he is strictly a creation of two supposedly conservative popes. JPII made him a Cardinal and Benedict allowed him to become Pope by foolishly resigning.
Well I must disagree here.
If he had appointed sound cardinals and bishops and had taken care that Summorum Pontificum is properly put in practice, after appointing half of the cardinals he could have retired in the full knowledge everything is spic and span and Bristol fashion.
Conversely, the bad appointments would have led to the election of either Bergoglio or another like him, even if his papacy had lasted up to the grave.
The problem as I see it is not in how he left the papacy, but in how he used it.
I had a big “aha” moment in January 2009, when the Austrian bishops started to bitch like there’s no tomorrow because of the appointment of Monsignor Wagner to – if memory serves – Auxiliary Bishop of Linz, And Benedict caved in.
M
The problem was already very serious under Pius XII and before ( look at V II bishops ) . With
Francis and whoever shall follow , in 30 years ,the Catholic Church will be only the ghost of what it used to be ( and should be ) . The possibility of an underground really Catholic Church , in my opinion , is not so far away , especially for our children and nephews .By the
way the same Benedict XVI had spoken clearly about this issue in his interviews-books late ’80 – first ‘ 90
You know what? I am sick and tired of all those “the problems were already big when everything was fine” types.
Of course, there were bad apples. Of course, many didn’t really like to be unpopular.
But what unleashed the chaos is the mess coming From above.
With Pius, a Bishop knew he had a tough job to do.
With John, he was told he was being too harsh.
With Paul, he was told it’s party time.
M
Never really pondered it, but learned here on this blog that canonizations are infallible. This makes me ponder more why the canonization of John XXIII is being expedited with only one miracle and even more importantly, why this man in particular is being canonized–for ushering in the destruction of Catholicism and the Holy Mass as it has stood for centuries. And what of his relation to the Masons? Any truth to that? And John Paul II, as personally holy as he was, enabled the deep decay of the Church over 2.5 decades. Paul the VI at least made a wise decision to condemn artificial contraception and portended its vast wreckage of humanity. He’s not being canonized, and may be more worthy, no? If the canonization of John the XXII does occur, what is God trying to tell us?
Canonisations are most certainly infallible.
On the other hand, they do not say anything about the Papacy, merely about the soul.
Excellent Popes (qua Popes) could be in hell. Horrible Popes in paradise.
To me the infallibility of canonisation says that thebfirst time Francis picks the wrong one, he’ll be as dead as a doornail before the canonisation mass.
M
“To me the infallibility of canonisation says that the first time Francis picks the wrong one, he’ll be dead as a doornail before the canonisation mass”
For example the “Venerable” Paul VI perhaps…it’s just a matter of time… 😦
What I mean is that if Francis canonises Paul VI and gets to live until the Mass that canonises him, then Paul VI is in heaven, full stop.
Or else, Francis is summoned to the Boss to give some, or many, explanations first, and then Paul VI will not be canonised…
M
Hold on. How can JPII be “personally holy” and yet wreck havoc all over the world via Assisi, promoting the errors of V2, doing nothing while perverts rape kids, sodomites run wild, nothing while generations of children don’t have Catechisms and were never catechized, heresies, liturgical abuses and basic chaos in the Church He was leading? I’m not a fan of the schizophrenia that implies. The only way JPII is with Our Lord is our Lady’s scapular….and that’s after billions of years in Purgatory. These canonizations are deeply disturbing…and if they somehow happen, the evil of V2 will live on. God bless~
Speak it out.
Do you think the canonisations are not infallible, then?
or do you think the visible Church is made by three dozen cranks?
M
I have been thinking that perhaps the example has been given by the Bishope of Rome showing the local Bishops how to handle suppressing the TLM by adopting the methods used against the FFI.
1.) Have someone else to the dirty work.
2.) Search for malcontents within the group and reward them for their useful purpose.
3.) If you cannot find any actual dirt that can be used, make some up using politically correct accusations. Involve the the mass media as much as possbile.
4.) Point to doctrinal differences and claim those holding the Catholic faith as the truth are divisive.
etc….