Francis - 'Trads want me dead'

THE TIMES (UK) 21 SEPT 2001

Pope Francis accused some of his conservative critics of wanting him “to die” and of doing the “work of the devil” in their attacks on the Church.

In an unusually candid conversation with 53 fellow Jesuits at the Vatican embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, Francis, 84, was asked how he feeling after having 13 inches of his intestine removed two months before.

According to an official transcript of the gathering on September 12 which was released yesterday by the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, he replied: “Still alive, even though some people wanted me to die.

“I know there were even meetings between prelates who thought the Pope’s condition was more serious than the official version. They were preparing for the conclave. Patience! Thank God, I’m all right.”

A Jesuit said the Church in Slovakia was divided over Francis’s leadership, with some seeing him as having departed from traditional Catholic teaching and viewing him with suspicion.


“There is, for example, a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the Pope. I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner but the Church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil,” the Pope said.

Francis is believed to have been referring to the US conservative broadcaster EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), which has consistently aired commentary critical of his papacy.

It is one of an archipelago of traditionalist media outlets and blogs that have opposed many of Francis’s efforts to modernise Church teachings.

“There are also clerics who make nasty comments about me,” he told his confrères. “I sometimes lose patience, especially when they make judgments without entering into a real dialogue.

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“I can’t do anything there. However, I go on without entering their world of ideas and fantasies. I don’t want to enter it and that’s why I prefer to preach, preach.”

Some of his critics accused him of not talking enough about holiness, he added. “They say I always talk about social issues and that I’m a communist. Yet I wrote an entire apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate [Rejoice and Be Glad],” he said.

The Pope defended his recent decision to require priests to seek special permission before celebrating the traditional Latin version of the mass, saying he was implementing the policies of his predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

“There are young people who after a month of ordination go to the bishop to ask for it. This is a phenomenon that indicates that we are going backward,” the Pope said.

Francis criticised those who sought security in the past, describing their “rigidity” and “clericalism” as “the evil of this moment” and “two perversions”. He said: “I think of the work that was done at the synod on the family to make it understood that couples in second unions are not already condemned to hell. It frightens us to accompany people with sexual diversity.”

Despite the sometimes sharp tone, the meeting was characterised by relaxed good humour, with Francis joking that encounters with Jesuits on his apostolic travels were a ruse by Father Antonio Spadaro, the editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, to gather material for his magazine.

The Pope opened the conversation with the words: “Now I wait for your questions. Take a shot at the goalkeeper. Come on!”

 

Little does he know.

It's the people he accuses of hatred who are actually praying for his conversion.

 

He condemns clericalism and the rigid as perversions

Yet mentions accompanying people with 'sexual diversity'.

Utter nonesense.

Male and female God created them.

 

Pretty much my prayer too.

 

I've seen plenty of people post online that his death would be a blessing. I don't know how that is not wishing for his death. Those people also claim to be traditionalists but I think they are a small minority trying to influence others.

 

Oh dear. It's probably sinful to say that the Pope is full of BS. Is it sinful to think it?

Wasn't he part of a group preparing for a conclave while Pope John Paul 11 was alive - the Pope who made such scheming an excommunicable offence? I'm reminded of an old, very unbiblical saying: "Do unto others as they would do unto you, but do it first".

 

You are magnanimous. Takes a lot of spiritual strength.

 

It sure sounds like he spends a lot of time and energy thinking about what people have to say about him.

 

Its really odd I think to go public with these comments. Why?

 

Thinking that God may smite someone is not the same as wanting it.

 

Maybe he thinks he will garner sympathy if he is viewed as a victim

 

The problem I see with his comments are that they are very insidious. Instead of the Church leading the world, Pope Francis's comments open the door wide for the secular world to lead the church and they love this sort of thing of course.

A great example of this was his comments regarding the notion of Biden being denied communion and his own personal experiences and proclamation that priests ought to remain pastoral in these matters. The secular world loves this because they can then use these comments to bludgeon faithful catholics who have the audacity to stand for what the church has always taught about this. Abortion and those that formally cooperate with it via these policies are committing a grave offense.
A priest that then gives Biden communion is willfully ignoring his duty knowing full well that this political policy is endorsed by him and he is personally cooperating in its proliferation.

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae ," 77 "by the very commission of the offense," 78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. 79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

 

Dr Taylor Marshall does a really great job examining all this. I love the way he reminds so calm and respectful. Can't believe he has Irish Ancestry. So polite and patient.

 

That is a very troubling attitude. It gives all of us a bad name. Maybe thats the point.

 

Around the time of the attempt on the life of JPII, I read a story by a Catholic journalist who said that a friend had reported to him that, while at lunch in a very expensive restaurant in London, he became aware of a party of Jesuit priests, from a nearby Church, lunching together (they don't have a reputation for 'stinting themselves). They apparently had imbibed not wisely but too well and one of them opined loudly 'It's a pity that that Turk couldn't shoot straight', to gales of laughter from his companions. I think that this nicely summarises the attitude of the 'modernists' to St. JP and the rest of his troublesome devotees (us). The thought that one of this religious order should become Pope and not merely a Jesuit but one who had managed to climb the 'greasy pole' in that most cynical and political of orders and not merely that but coming from by far the most 'progressive' of their provinces (South America) made my stomach churn (literally) when his election was announced.

It further sickened me to hear, normally restrained and thoughtful traditional Catholics, greet his election joyfully. He described himself as 'humble' when he took office - a bad sign when someone assigns himself a great virtue - and Catholics believed him! He has played the 'passive-aggressive' card since day 1 and here he is doing it again. I don't wish him dead (before his conversion) I wish him silenced and given time to consider and repent.

 

If I were the Devil and I wanted to attack a Religious Order it would have been the Jesuits I would have went for. Why them? They are the Richest and most powerful, the most educated and influential. They are the tail ,so to speak that wags the dog. Then in Oder I would attack outwards attacking the Dominican's and other active orders like the Franciscans.

This is what appears to have happened, especially in the case of the Jesuits. But there must be good and very holy Jesuits out there somewhere. Perhaps it just is that we never hear from them?

There used to be a really wonderful little magazine published in Ireland by the Jesuits, 'The Messenger of the Sacred Heart'. Very, very spiritual.
Yes there has to still be good Jesuits out there somewhere or other...

 

Think of all the Jesuit Saints, there must have been hundreds of them...

 

I can only compare him to the writings of all the great Saints I have read and just shake my head!. This statement from the Pope was so petty and self centered. To accuse good Catholics of wanting him dead, when he knows he is pushing them, he knows he is acting in a way that the Apostles never acted, he knows he is belittling Truth! I am going to start praying to Mother Angelica about him. Oh if only she were here and back on the air right now!

 

May God have Mercy on his poor soul. It is terrible, truly terrible to think of a Pope's soul being flung into the Eternal Flames of Hell.

Apparently Padre Pio foresaw all this before he died and it caused him terrible, terrible pain.