Francis’ Response to Dubia Submitted by 4 Cardinals Comes Just as You’d Expect……

……..that is to say, using the dumbest form of social media, through a surrogate, and with a tone of smug superiority and total disdain for the very real concerns raised.

Four cardinals, including Cardinal Burke, submitted a detailed dubium to Francis, requesting he clarify or correct what these cardinals rightly perceive as very problematic, even erroneous (or inviting error) statements within Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which was, surprise!, written before the second session of the synod on marriage and the family had even begun.  You can read the cardinal’s submission, and much related coverage, here.  While some may find this action late, it is important to remember that the Church always moves slowly, that this dubium was sent months ago, and that Amoris Laetitia only came out this year.  I am personally very gratified to see this official communication of resistance – it is really a not so veiled assertion of heresy within Amoris Laetitia, and calls upon Francis to, more or less, retract his erroneous propositions by clarifying them along orthodox lines – but I am left wondering where all this will lead.

Now, this dubium was submitted months ago, but was only publicized recently by the cardinals, since Francis has chosen not to respond to their charitable and quite appropriate submission.  However, his hand-picked court theologian, and author of Amoris Laetitia and a number of other papal statements, Anthony Spadaro, SJ, has responded, almost certainly with the knowledge and approval of Francis himself.  His reply, in the form of “tweets,” are as rude as they are dismissive of very real concerns shared not only by these four cardinals but by millions of other Catholics.  Via VoxCantoris:

 

Very much a “my way or the highway” approach – just what one would naturally expect from a man who constantly appeals to charity, compassion, and understanding.  I am being sarcastic, of course, those appeals are naught but means to an end for this most revolutionary pontiff.

I am not surprised to see this response in the least.  It is exactly the kind of response I expect to see from any kind of left-wing ideologue, whether they cover themselves in the trappings of Catholicism or if they are out n’ proud denizens of the Castro Street Fair – not a mutually exclusive crowd, to say the least.  It’s the same kind of completely uncomprehending, dismissive attitude we see from the leftists trying to “re-litigate” the presidential election in the streets of the US.

The only question is, will Burke or other leaders of the Church realize that this man, Francis, is not playing by any of the old rules, and will not respond with anything but sneering derision to any of the standard means of trying to check error?  If this is all the response they get, will they go further?  What else can they, or should they, do, as leaders holding to a more orthodox approach to the Faith Christ gave us?  What should we be doing, if anything, beyond the constant recourse to prayer and penance? Is it even possible to conceive that a general council could be conceived, and that it would judge Francis to be a manifest and obdurate heretic?  I can’t conceive of it, but that’s where Steve Skojec thinks Burke may be headed.

The thing is, this man will never stop.  Amoris Laetitia is just the first major salvo.  There will be many more, unless God intervenes in dramatic or mundane fashion.  Indeed, his liberal allies of the St. Gallen mafia are calling for him to do much more. The intent is clear, to undermine and eventually overturn, along progressive-modernist lines, the entire moral edifice of the Faith, and to dare people to oppose him.  The few remaining institutional checks on wayward papal power are wholly ineffective against an ideologue of this sort, and, even more, the massive cult of personality that has surrounded the papacy over the past century or so has left Catholics ill-equipped to stand in opposition (which is at is should be?). He is unreachable by logic or persuasion.

I don’t have a lot of answers, other than, as I said, doing still more prayer and penance.  Prayer gave this country another chance to avoid the abyss, I pray God will be still more generous with regard to His Church.  The fox is in the henhouse.  We are deep into the passion of the Church.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I fear things will get much worse before they get better.  I guess one final question might be, is schism, at this point, inevitable (by human means)?  Steve Skojec seems to think it is.