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| "Carissime Sante Pater..." |
Ann says: What should the Vicar of Jesus Christ be doing? Um, practicing, teaching and preaching Catholicism. That would be a good start. He should be offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Gregorian Rite at the Papal Altar of St. Peter's basilica, directly above the tomb of St. Peter himself, every single day, begging our Crucified Savior there upon the altar, with copious tears, to have mercy on and to cleanse His Holy Church and the whole world. This should be broadcast/live-streamed and made available to watch on the Vatican's website and whoever else wants to carry it, with closed captions in Latin above the various vernacular languages. The Pope should likewise celebrate Solemn Benediction every day, and recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, again in reparation for the horrific sins of the world - and not nonsense fake Marxist sins like "wasting food" or "using air conditioning". No, actual real sins like sacrilege, sodomy, abortion, concubinage, and coveting and stealing other people's private property and wealth, most especially by governments. Then the Holy Father should lead the world in praying the Most Holy Rosary - all 15 mysteries (You heard me. Fifteen. There are exactly FIFTEEN mysteries.), in Latin, for the crushing of and in reparation for the heresy of Modernism. He should conclude this daily rosary by reciting himself the Oath Against Modernism. Every. Single. Day. Once he gets that squared away, then we can start on formulating a plan for broadcasting him publicly praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the HOURS. In Latin. Not the Liturgy of the Minutes in some barbarous tongue....
As we approach the Synod on the Family, I am hoping for the emergence of a new Saint Catherine of Siena. As I have known since I was a tiny child, the original Saint Catherine of Siena corrected/advised the pope of her day. I cannot remember if I was impressed or not that it turned out Saints (Girl Saints!) trump Pope. My family wasn't that interested in popes. Our family devotions were pretty much reserved to the Blessed Trinity although a statue of Our Lady stood on the chimney piece, thanks to my Catholic grandma. (My Protestant grandma was ho-hum about religion.)
Anyway, I should think that if any new Catherine were to emerge, it would have to be someone like Ann, as Ann is (A) a chaste virgin, (B) a Daily Mass-goer and (C) greatly given to mediaeval acts of courage, helpfully giving her address to Islamist assassins so she can test out her weapons, defying unjust tax collectors, preaching the hard teachings of the Gospel in and out of season, etc.
However, Ann lacks spiritual clout. She is more famous for her politics than for her piety, which strikes me as unfair, but then she also isn't a mystic. I suppose Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Sister Lucia of Fatima both had the kind of spiritual authority that popes have to listen to, but unfortunately for us they have toddled off to their heavenly rewards. Pope Francis's own mother (who was a very pretty bride, I see) died in 1981.
When it comes to ticking off/advising popes, I hope nobody is looking to me, for I am not at all an appropriate person. Most of the time, a person demanding that somebody in their parish do something to improve parish life should be the person to do it themselves ("Oh, but I am too busy."). However, when it comes to taking on the role of The Next Saint Catherine, I am sure there has to be a voice calling you in the night.
Of course, hundreds (or thousands) would disagree with me and point out that all laymen have the responsibility of correcting the pope, should he err. I wonder how many of them have actually taken paper and pen in hand to do so, however, and which among them has a name so commanding that Archbishop Ganswein, or whoever sorts the mail, would take his or her letter directly to the Holy Father.
If I may respectfully disagree, no, Ann is not anything like I would wish to see as the next Catherine of Siena. Poor St. Catherine. I have heard her described as patron saint of people who are angry on the internet, and it's kind of true. Everybody who is More Catholic Than The Pope these days pulls the Catherine of Siena card, ignoring that her rebukes and advice to the Pope were made by private correspondence not open letter or public combox, and that they tempered their forthrightness with humility and filial respect, even affection.
ReplyDeleteNever in a thousand years would she have demanded that someone use one valid and permitted form of liturgy instead of another, nor complained about someone engaging in a non-liturgical private devotion in a manner contrary to her own personal tastes as if it were some offense against faith and morals. (Honestly. People have been making up additional sets of Mysteries for centuries. It's a meditation on the life of Our Lord and His Mother. There is plenty of room for thematic variation. If you don't like the Luminous, that's fine, don't use them, but don't make like they're this icky awful aberration.) And "barbarous tongue"? Seriously?
And I might understand the questioning of pastoral priorities if the current Pope did NOT in fact talk often and extensively about the sanctity of life and family, but he does. It just goes unnoticed because it doesn't make good sound bites and doesn't fit into the "Frankie Our Lefty Hero Pope" (or "Frankie the Lefty Nightmare Pope") invented narrative. Also, dismissing the scandalous waste of food and other resources in our throwaway luxury-seeking consumerist culture as "nonsense fake Marxist sins" suggests a concern more with the political Culture War than with the actual Gospel. I threw out pounds and pounds of food when I cleaned out the fridge the other day. The wilting produce and elderly leftovers and jars of expired sauce are a rebuke to me that I, who consider myself a person of relatively modest means, could afford to buy new food instead of eating what I had when it was still good, in a world where millions of people don't even have clean water, never mind an excess of nutritious food. The money that bought that food rightly belonged to someone who needed it more than I, and I in my greed stole it from them by failing to practice the works of mercy. Woe to me who am rich, for I have had my reward.
And that's not even considering the sheer scale of food waste on the part of restaurants and other food businesses, or the poisoning of Chinese air and water to run the factories and mine the materials that build our cheap throwaway consumer goods.
The world doesn't need a new Catherine of Siena to play backseat driver to the Pope. The world could well need a few new saints, though. We can always use more saints.
You certainly have some good points, especially about the mass amnesia whenever Francis defends the sanctity of life and family.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I almost went out of my mind with fear and horror last October--thank God for that Polish bishop marching over to Vatican Radio to tell the whole story--and I am rather worried about this October, given the most recently reported homily on the family. In the UK, hundreds of priests signed a letter begging the Synod to stand firm on the divorced and remarried issue. I am not sure, but I think this is unprecedented. http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/03/24/nearly-500-priests-in-england-and-wales-urge-synod-to-stand-firm-on-communion-for-the-remarried/
I think the "barbarous tongues" thing was a Bernhardian flourish. Ann has a rather colourful way of putting things.
What's rather amusing is that, IIRC, Pope Francis prefers using the 15 mystery Rosary and prays his Hours in Latin. Somehow I doubt the Holy Father would ever satisfy Ms. Barnhardt.
DeleteOh, I should underscore that I think we need ONE modern day St Catherine of Siena, one who writes the way you observe Catherine wrote, not a zillion wannabe St Catherines.
ReplyDeleteIs this the homily? I don't know what's objectionable. http://www.news.va/en
ReplyDeleteI agree with Heather, and would also add that the pope is not pope of the US. Why should he have a stronger reaction about the US than France or Ireland? Isn't the prayer etc the place of the US church, all of us but maybe especially the bishops?
I'll have a look for the scary homily. Meanwhile, you are quite right about the pope not being the pope of the USA. In Scotland we didn't wail to the skies when the government redefined marriage, even though something like 60% of respondents to their query said "No." I like your idea of the USA church carrying out Ann's liturgical plan. How impressive that would be!
DeleteI'll have a look for the scary homily. Meanwhile, you are quite right about the pope not being the pope of the USA. In Scotland we didn't wail to the skies when the government redefined marriage, even though something like 60% of respondents to their query said "No." I like your idea of the USA church carrying out Ann's liturgical plan. How impressive that would be!
DeleteTo be honest, I think Ann sounds like a crank.
ReplyDeleteMany people think that. Some think she is out of her mind! I think she has a heck of a writing style, and most definitely walks the talk. Naturally it is awful when a Muslim extremist walks the talk. But what does it look like when a Catholic extremist walks the talk? Sometimes like Ann. Google "Ann Bernhardt" and you'll find her story, which reminds me of a mediaeval hagiography.
DeleteMany people think that. Some think she is out of her mind! I think she has a heck of a writing style, and most definitely walks the talk. Naturally it is awful when a Muslim extremist walks the talk. But what does it look like when a Catholic extremist walks the talk? Sometimes like Ann. Google "Ann Bernhardt" and you'll find her story, which reminds me of a mediaeval hagiography.
DeleteI dislike religious extremists of any breed, the more so if they agree with me.
Delete:-D I love them in saint stories, though. Very intense.
DeleteI think Ann (whoever she is) certainly does sound like a crank. Seraphic left out the crankiest bits of what Ann had to say, most of which was just hysterical ranting and raving. She is NOT a modern-day St Catherine.
ReplyDeleteWell, no. I don't think Ann is a modern-day St Catherine, for she lacks the spiritual and diplomatic reputation a modern-day St Catherine would need. Ann's probably more like Saint Jerome, only minus the scholarship. Maybe she's like Saint Nicholas, for she has come to give presents and punch heretics, and she's all out of presents, as the Catholic Facebook meme went.
DeleteI left out the rest because the part I was most interested in was the liturgical plan for asking God's mercy. Asking for God's protection and mercy is a big part of most TLMs, as is the frank recognition that there is a hell (literally) of a lot of wickedness in the world.
I know Ann personally; she is intense, but she is not hysterical. She is the sort of person who will chase down a purse-snatcher and tackle him because she thinks he really shouldn't get away with it
Sorry to nitpick, but it should say "Sancte Pater" under the picture.
ReplyDeleteAnna
Not in Italian it shouldn't.
Deleteyes, but it's supposed to be Latin! :-D So thank you, Anna!
DeleteOkay, here is the alarming homily if you are interested http://www.zenit.org/es/articles/texto-completo-de-la-homilia-del-santo-padre-en-el-parque-los-samanes
ReplyDeleteSomeone translated the most alarming-to-them part as follows: "“And in the family—of this we are all witnesses—miracles are done with what there is, with whom we are, with what one has at hand… and many times, it’s not the ideal thing, it’s not what we dream of, not even ‘what it should be.’ There is a detail that ought to make us think: the new wine, that wine so good that the steward refers to in the wedding at Cana, comes forth (literally: ‘is born of’, a Spanish way of saying) the jugs of purification, that is to say, the place where everybody had left their sin… It comes from (literally again: ‘is born of’) the ‘very worst’ because from ‘whence there came abundant sin, much more abundant was the grace’ (Rom 5:20). And in the family of each one of us and in the common family we all form a part of, nothing is discarded, nothing is useless. Soon before the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Church will celebrate the Ordinary Synod dedicated to the families, in order to mature (or ripen) a true spiritual discernment, and to find solutions and concrete assistance to the many difficulties and important challenges that the family today must face. I invite you all to intensify your prayer for this intention, so that even for that which seems to us to be impure, like the water in the jugs, or scandalize or frighten us, God—making it go through his ‘hour’—can transform it into a miracle. The family today needs of this miracle.”
The question is, in the context of the upcoming Synod on the Family, what does he mean by "new wine" and what is it that seems to us "impure", scandalizing and frightening?
That is the same homily I found above, which speaks rather beautifully of Mary as our mother.
DeleteI guess in the context of my view of him, those bits don't make me nervous. I just assume he means the sin that is part of all our families. Maybe I'll be proven wrong about the divorced and remarried, but I hope not!
How do you know Ann Barnhardt Seraphic? I like her and follow her website, although with her singular love of Christ and Truth and prayer I often wonder why she doesn't join a good convent. She has quoted John Senior before and he is the one who recommends those who are unmarried to go join the Benedictines and pray since that is the only effective response to today's world or become an oblate if you have commitments. Perhaps being in the world is her vocation.
ReplyDeleteSinéad.
Well, I cannot say really as I am not as excited as Ann is by the prospect of people finding out where "The van down by the river" and trying to shoot her, as the Southern Poverty Law Center clearly wants them to do.
ReplyDeleteThank you for defending Ann. She reminds me of Jeanne d'Arc! Ann doesn't mince words and she definitely walks the talk. I wish she could bend the ear of Pope Francis.
ReplyDelete--Aurora
Thank you for posting this interview with Ann! I had never heard of her before this. I am so sick of Catholics trying to be all "PC" with Pope Francis, pretending like we can't criticize him, and instead that we all have to only say great things about him. The truth is so important. He is preaching socialism and cozying up to communists, which right there makes you wonder if he's already proven that he's not Pope--a Pope cannot proclaim heresy and still be Pope. Anyway, again, thank you for posting that interview.
ReplyDelete--Seana in USA
I am very fond of Ann. As you can imagine, she is very stimulating company. As for Pope Francis, I agree that the truth is very important. As a Catholic journalist, I am very embarrassed about Catholic journalists reporting that he rejected that ghastly Bolivian hammer-and-sickle crucifix when he didn't. But he is, of course, the pope.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what he says or does, Francis is the pope unless the Colleges of Cardinals agree that he is not the pope. I am not an expert on how it is decided a pope is not a pope but an anti-pope, but as Benedict XVI accepts Francis as Pope, I guess he's Pope. I am still sad Benedict abdicated--what a thing to do--but he's still Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger, the guy who gave us back the Mass of the Ages.
A few thoughts: First of all, the 24/7 media coverage of popes is relatively new, and only really got going with John Paul II. (I think we can date the average person thinking at all about popes, not their own bishop, from Pius IX.)
Second, the media flat out lies about Francis. It lied about Benedict, too. (Remember when Benedict supposedly "lifted the ban" on condoms? How stupid was that?) Thus, it can be really hard to get the real story on Francis.
Third, at the same time, Francis says a lot of stuff that reveals him not to be the intellectual equal of a John Paul II or a Benedict XVII, let alone possessing the leadership of a Pius XII. That's too bad, but as the priesthood is no longer seen as something the brightest boys should aspire too, we'll have to get used to that for the next 40 years--unless through some miracle future Popes are chosen from men younger than myself.
Fourth, we once had an Arian Pope, so we have certainly had a heretical Pope. He have also had homosexual, incestuous, murderous and power-crazed popes. Thanks to them, we had the Protestant Reformation, the Wars of Religion and all kinds of terrible results.
Fifth, Catholic Social Teaching looked like socialism enough that Dorothy Day, who missed very much being a Communist, was absolutely delighted and spent her life being called a socialist, both by doubting conservatives and by smug liberals.
Sixth, Francis is not an American, or a survivor of the Soviet Empire, but a Latin American--a Latin American post-Arrupe Jesuit--so that is the way he is going to look at communists. I doubt Francis thinks that much about the USA, which has a relatively small Catholic population; I bet Canada never crosses his mind.
Very likely the only way to understand Francis is to understand him as an Argentinian Jesuit educated by Jesuits in Latin America, but probably with a soft spot for the German Church, as he went to the St. George College of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, but dropped out without finishing whatever he went there to do. German theology means a big fat deal in the world of Catholic academic theology, let me tell you, as does Liberation Theology.
The rebirth of Cardinal Kasper's career under this pontificate makes me want to bang my head on concrete. However, if you read the wiki entry on Kasper, you will see what a great reputation he had in Argentina for his work in inter-religious dialogue, an activity dear to Papa Bergolio's heart. Thus, I guess it was inevitable that Kasper would regain prominence.
DeleteOh, I should explain that I believe firmly that a renaissance of the priesthood has begun, and that some very bright, devout boys are choosing the priesthood, without any illusions that priests will be allowed to get married one day soon, etc.
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