A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

OUTRAGEOUS: Still more persecution of the Franciscans of the Immaculate November 11, 2015

Cardinal Bras de Aziz and his henchman Archbishop  Jose Rodriguez Carballo have ratcheted up the persecution against the Franciscans of the Immaculate yet again.  Tancred has a translation of a long and difficult to follow post from Katholisches, but the gist is this: Pope Francis’ men in the Congregation for Religious have invented a new charge against the orthodox members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate (the vast majority, male and female), that they took a “secret vow” to the founder of the order, and that this vow somehow carries nefarious implications.  What is really at stake is further persecution of those who remain attached to Tradition and especially the Traditional Latin Mass.  Also involved is the cover-up of financial corruption in the Franciscan order (NOT the Immaculates) which culminated in the order declaring bankruptcy last year.  Bankruptcy proceedings have revealed the order dabbled in immoral investments, including drug trafficking.  The head of the General Curia of the Order when most of this financial activity occurred?: Jose Rodriguez Carballo.

Of course, behind all this persecution is strongly suspected the hand of Pope Francis, who apparently has a startling vendetta against the organization.

Key excerpts from the Katholicsches article:

The battle against the  Franciscans of the Immaculata continues…….With a confidential decree of 19. October 2015, the Roman Congregation for Religious reinforced its resolve to proceed further against the men’s and women’s branches of the Order. In his decree Pope Francis is obliging the women’s order to avoid a “special vow” or “solemn promise.” What this involves can be read herein.

[Decree from the Congregation of Religious follows] “Because of credible information about a private vow (or promise) of special obedience, which is reserved to some male and female religious to the founder, which has been placed above the general vows of obedience owed to the superior, has prompted this dicastry to bring this problem to the attention of the Holy Father, who has given a special mandate to deal specifically with this problem. [What is really implied here is loyalty to the “imprisoned” founder Fr. Stefano Manelli, instead of the leadership appointed by Pope Francis, and the few miscreants from the order who helped bring about the coup against the founder and former leadership]

Therefore, the Congregation for the Institute of Consecrated Life and for the Societies of Apostolic Life in enforcing this mandate for the good of the souls of all members of the Franciscans of the Immaculata, and all eventually bound to these institutions, by private vows (or promises) of a special nature to founders or foundresses.

In consequence it will be necessary that in future this vow or promise in future is not practiced either in its current or any future form.

…….

Released against anything to the contrary, from the Vatican, on 19th of October 2015.

Joao Braz Card. de Aviz

Prefect

+ José Rodriguez Carballo OFM

Erzbischof Sekretär

…….The Order is made ​​by blending diverse elements under general suspicion. But telling signs can be seen Interspersed between.

The article refers back to a Franciscan  of the Immaculate, who wanted neither to be named  or photographed. He had stated:  without giving any reasons, that there are new efforts around the deposed Founder  Fr Stefano Maria Manelli and the Vatican in 2013,  to establish a new  Old Rite Order. [Heaven forbid a new order dedicated to the TLM!]“They do not want to acknowledge the Modern”,  the anonymous brother  who is against these efforts, allegedly told Corriere della Sera. The special vow (or promise) was linked to these aspirations for a new foundation and concerns those men and women religious, who have remained faithful to the Founder. [It sounds much more likely to me that a group of like-minded FIs have simply determined to do all they can to retain the order’s original charism, rather than the ineffectual and order-destroying post-conciliar model being imposed on them by the apostolic administration imposed by Pope Francis.]

The Decree by the Congregation of Religious which was in turn adopted with papal approval, says at the outset that there were “credible” reports. The decree itself reveals, however, that the Vatican has adopted it on the basis of conjecture, without having any concrete evidence. The decree thus sounds like a new shot across the bow, which clarifies that the religious congregation remains determined to disrupt  the order from recognition and to subject it to re-education.  Anyway, nothing should remain of  the actual charisma of the Order.

The fact is that there are, since the Autumn of 2013, efforts of monks and nuns to found a new religious in which the true charism lives. That charism of fidelity to tradition and the rediscovery of the traditional rite, which had led the Order to its heyday and was shattered by the raging actions of the apostolic administrator and now deceased Fr. Fidenzio Volpi, appointed in 2013.  So far, however, nothing is known about a “special vow.” [if it even exists. What does appear to exist is a continuing animus against the order in the Congregation of Religious even with Volpi’s sudden death.]

The Congregation appointed a new Commissar last June with  the Salesian Sabino Ardito, and there was hope that he would lead the Order with a calmer hand. However, the Congregation of Religious does not seem willing to grant such a rest. Above all, it seems to want to prevent the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate from carrying out a new religious foundation. Commissar Volpi had warned  Italian Bishops during the General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference not to take Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in their dioceses.

As early as autumn 2013. dozens of brothers had applied to the Congregation of Religious to be released from their religious vows. The canonically compliant departure from  the altered Order should have given them the opportunity to ask for incardination in dioceses and free them up for the path to reestablishment of an Order. The Congregation has refused until today, however, such a dispensation. Cardinal Braz de Aviz and Pope Francis do not want the Order of Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate 2, since the Order of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate 1 have placed under provisional control ​​and broken. [Because this is about ideological opposition, not mere “problems” with the FIs]

Thus, the brothers are forced by the Congregation to remain in the Order, although this is no longer the same order since the provisional administration than the one which they were originally committed to…… [And amounts to a vicious persecution for no apparent reason other than ideological opposition]

The ordeal of  Father Manelli’s order, who was ousted from the Order until the summer of 2013, so continues. Reminder: The Order of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate was created after the Second Vatican Council. While other orders over abruptly “modernized”, Father Manelli went the opposite way and wanted to return to the roots of the Minorite Order, to which he belonged at the time. He joined an increasing number of young men and women, so in 1990 a new foundation was necessary for religious revival of the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis of Assisi.

Under Pope Benedict XVI.   the young discovered, with the blessing of numerous vocations,  the traditional rite. The priests concelebrated it for reasons of pastoral care in both forms of the Roman Rite. Internally the Order underwent the change from the new rite to the traditional rite. The result was an even more rapid growth of the Order, which would then set up a number of new monasteries and take over  pastoral care in parishes and sanctuaries. [Which infuriated the orders who had to abandon those monasteries  years before due to their collapsing numbers. They also showed up quite plainly the fallacy of the post-conciliar changes, especially as regarded compelling practice of religious life (compelling enough to cause hundreds to join)]

The Order did not belong, because of its development, to the old ritual Ecclesia Dei -communities but was under the Congregation of Religious like all new rite communities.  That made ​​it an anomaly that was before 2013, an example to all the other new rite orders.

Thus arose also a violent resistance within the Order. The resistance of a small internal minority, who would not  tolerate the traditional rite. [Which, by all accounts (and I’ve spoken with several FIs), did not amount to more than a bare handful of disaffected members. Those prepared to act numbered just 5 or 6. The vast majority strongly preferred the direction the order was taking towards Tradition]For the same reason there was also resistance from among other church circles who believed they recognized a hazard in the Order. The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate had a thriving community, and were viewed enviously by the other orders. Above all, it seemed to be the living proof that the often prostrate  nature of religious orders can be revived even in Europe through the stern austerity, tradition and the traditional rite.……

……..With the unexpected resignation of Benedict and the election of Pope Francis, the situation had changed radically in one fell swoop. The Argentinian Pope was soon repeatedly recognized for his dislike of the representatives of tradition and also that he retained the traditional rite as  a passing “fad.” Now things happened in quick succession. Citing and in cooperation with the small band of five brothers who complained to the Congregation of Religious, Father Manelli and the entire Order leadership were deposed and replaced by an Apostolic Commissar, the said Father Volpi, and he also no friend of the traditional rite. The Order now lacked the protection afforded by the Ecclesia Dei ‘s own communities.

To this day, the Vatican has offered no reasons for this serious interference………[those offered heretofore having been shown to be demonstrably false, except for that hated “drift”]

……..Pope Francis withdrew the possibility from the astonished friars the right to appeal against the decree in opposition to the Congregation of Religious. The case would have ultimately landed before the judgment seat of Cardinal Raymond Burke, the then Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, an incorruptible Canon Law expert and declared friend of the traditional rite. This simply could be allowed to happen. Since a potentially favorable judgment from the Apostolic Signatura must be avoided, means of redress were blocked by direct papal action, and the re-education campaign commenced in force. [But even with Burke gone and a Francis man appointed in his place, the order remains.  It is a most cruel order, giving the FIs a poisonous choice: leave religious life (and, for many, the priesthood) entirely, or suffer continued persecution with no end in sight.  Amazingly, many have remained, a testament to their faith.]

Pope Francis has dedicated his pontificate to the theme of mercy. Yet he has showed the Franciscans of the Immaculate anything but mercy.

OK so the “excerpts” turned into almost everything. Sorry, Tancred.

I’m afraid it will wait for a future pope to lift the draconian measures against the Franciscans of the Immaculate, male and female.  This has seemed to me an ideological vendetta from the start.  The FIs could not be allowed to remain as they were, because they were too traditional, too successful, and, possibly more than anything, they committed the unpardonable sin of critically examining Vatican II in the light of tradition, just as every other ecumenical council has been analyzed. But since the problematic aspects of Vatican II cannot stand scrutiny (of grounds of logic and prudence, let alone Tradition), that simply cannot be allowed.

Better to make up charges of Lefebvrism and be done with them.  Which charge reveals the degree of orchestrated demonization which has been directed at the SSPX for decades, and which continues to afflict the entire traditional movement to this day, as Fr. Romanowski’s comments this past weekend made clear.  Think on how much mercy and patience the Church since Vatican II has showered on protestant heretics and the fallen, sinful world!  But there is no mercy for those in the Church who even question aspects of the documents of Vatican II!

Pray for the Franciscans of the Immaculate and poor Fr. Manelli! Pray they remain strong!  This persecution shall not last forever.  They are true sons and daughters of St. Francis, some of the very few remaining, and are deserving of being held up as exemplars rather than persecuted out of existence!  I do believe that the order will one day, after this pontificate, be exonerated and allowed to return to its former practices.  I believe it is an order pleasing to God, and thus nothing human can stop it, ultimately.  But the interim will surely be one of those times that tries the poor, pious, afflicted souls of the order.

Oh yeah, this just has to be stopped. So pre-conciliar! Haven’t they heard about the new pentecost? Don’t they know the Church started in 1962?!?