Why The Pope Is Not Obeyed

Spot the difference with the Church...

If you wonder why the Pope is not obeyed and nothing happens to those who disobey to him, look no further than here, where the always excellent Rorate Caeli has some rather bad news for you.

It so happens that the “liturgy” of the Neocatechumenal Way is now – as it appears very probable – going to be approved by the Holy Father. This, after the Holy Father himself had ordered them to drop some of their most shocking peculiarities, his instructions being, as so often, largely ignored without any serious consequence.

The brutal truth of the matter is the Pope isn’t obeyed because he doesn’t show much interest in his will being respected, and even tends to reward disobedience after a while. It is as if he had decided that to talk is enough, the acting being something that can be safely postponed and left to his successors.

I am afraid age doesn’t seem to be helping the Holy Father in this respect, and the signals have been multiplying for some time that the advance in years is paid with a marked decrease of his ability, or will, to operate for the hermeneutic of continuity for which his pontificate will be very probably remembered.

Look, if you dare, at the videos posted on the Rorate page (I do not dare doing it myself; have looked at the first minute of the first and my adrenaline level went through the roof) and tell me what this is to do with any continuity, or with Catholicism come to that. On the contrary, it is clear to me the Pontiff is actively sabotaging his own work, as seen not only by this last probable initiative, but also by the continued impunity of all those bishops actively sabotaging Summorum Pontificum, by the utter inability to have a robust ruler caress the gloved fingers of the Nichols and Schoenborns of the world, and by the rather populist drive most recently shown with the Assisi III initiative. If memory serves, Assisi III was also announced at the very beginning of the year; a period I will now dread for the duration of this pontificate.

I have just published my blog post of comment to the latest utterances of Cardinal Ranjith regarding the Vetus Ordo. I have the horrible feeling that, if asked, he would use similar words – and, no doubt, throw V II into the bargain – to defend the mock liturgy of the Neocatechumenal Way. The fact is, the only clear direction seem to be not to have any, and rather try to appease everyone by sending some praise here and some approvals there.

One is clearly reminded of British Leyland in the Seventies.

Thankfully, British Leyland didn’t have the Holy Ghost on its side, which is why it went belly up in comparatively few years.

Then we wonder why the SSPX has not accepted the preambolo dottrinale. Imagine full reconciliation and something like that happening, without the SSPX feeling free to make fire from as many cannons as they think fit.

Mundabor