Escape From Reality

In these difficult days, I see around me two ways in which some bloggers and commenters try to escape reality.

1) They say that Francis is not the Pope. Wrong. Francis is the Pope because the entire Church, the entire Church hierarchy and the entire planet see him as the Pope. He is not even challenged. Not even by the one (Benedict) who according to some is the real and only Pope. The surreal consequence of this is the decision that the one the entire world sees as Pope should not be it, whilst the one some of them say is the only Pope says that he is merely a retired emeritus, and Francis is in charge. A challenge to a throne without even a challenger simply does not exist; it is fantasy, not fact.

Reality matters. However sad and unprecedented this situation is, we face it without thinking that we can decide who is, or isn't, Pope.

2) They downplay Francis' heretical acts and statement, because they are ready to bend over backwards and produce themselves in the most bizarre contortions in order to avoid stating another facts staring at us in the face: that we have a heretical Pope.

Reality, again, matters. The discussion whether Francis is in formal or material heresy is, if you ask me, less important than the agreement on the fact that should be universally acknowledged: that this Pope fosters error and must now – by the bishops and cardinals – be forced to recant it or deposed.

If Francis' heresy is formal, then he has factually made himself unworthy of and factually resigned his office together with his membership of the Church; but this renounciation would still have to be declared in order to depose him, and until that moment he would still be the holder of the office. In the same way, if a POTUS is found in the act of committing a multiple murder he certainly deserves impeachment, but he is still in office until the impeachment is voted, declared and made operative.

If, on the contrary, Francis' heresy is material, then the preliminary stage would be a last offer to recant his error, albeit such a possibility could be offered, in theory, also to a formal heretic.

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The situation is, if you ask me, as clear as the sun, because it appears in front of our eyes with all the evidence of hard facts: a heretic seats on the throne of Peter. Still a heretic, and still sitting, with no challenger in sight. This has happened in the past, will happen in the future, is very sad, and has probably never happened with such virulence (even Honorius could have been weakly defended; Francis is indefensible) in the entire history of the Church. Still, here we are, confronted with facts, not our fanciful and very Protestant interpretation of them.

A heretic seats on the throne of Peter, and we were never given assurance that this would not be the case. His heretical energy and hate for the Church is unprecedented, but do is the rebellion of Vatican II. The most astonishing betrayal of proper theology and abandonment of proper governance must perforce lead to the most astonishing explosion of heresy from the top and abuse from the bottom. This is what V II looked like from the very start; it merely needed sixty years for the ugly face of heterodoxy to completely emerge.

I am merely a layman. No Pope has ever depended on my opinion to decide whether he is really Pope, and it is perfectly right this way. Do not escape from reality. Use it as you would for everything else. Apply common sense and Church Teaching. The Church will get out of this as she has from all the rest.

M