Inside the Catholic civil war

[Geee]

UnHerd

With Pope Benedict dead, the gloves are off

In the early hours of January 2, the fully robed body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was transferred from the little monastery in the Vatican where he had died on the last day of 2022 to St Peter’s Basilica. There is a photograph of his remains being lifted into a vehicle. It’s shocking, but not because it shows a dead ex-pope. It’s true that today’s megapixel cameras conveyed the waxwork sheen of the corpse in unnerving detail, but that was more obvious when Benedict was lying in St Peter’s (and, anyway, we British are squeamish because we don’t open the casket for mourners).

No: the shocking thing about that photo is that Benedict XVI, the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century as well as a revered pontiff, is being loaded into a white van. OK, so it’s an undertaker’s vehicle, and everyone is behaving with due reverence, but what was the Vatican thinking? The optics are terrible: Benedict looks like a piece of furniture. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that Pope Francis’s staff didn’t think Benedict merited a ceremonial hearse. At the Requiem Mass, Francis preached a homily in which he mentioned his predecessor’s name only once, and couldn’t be bothered to attend the interment in the crypt. Even the Vatican correspondent Robert Mickens, a veteran critic of Benedict’s, wrote that the Pope Emeritus “deserved better”. Cardinals from around the world were horrified.

Now Francis is paying the price. No sooner was Benedict in his grave than we felt the first tremors of an earthquake that threatens to bury his successor alive. The Catholic civil war has entered a new phase. The Pope has been accused by his enemies of favouring heretics, foul-mouthed outbursts of temper, sucking up to dictators, sadistic manoeuvres against traditionalists, perverting the course of justice, a feeble grasp of Catholic doctrine and — not for the first time — of protecting a sex abuser. Catholic conservatives had been worried for years that when the ancient ex-pope finally died, Francis would be free to pursue his own agenda. For nearly 10 years he stopped short of formally changing Catholic teaching on divorce and homosexuality, restricting himself to giving a nudge and a wink to hardline liberals while missing no opportunity to give traditionalists a kicking.

In a development that would have been unthinkable 30 years ago, Latin Mass parishes and communities are attracting disproportionate numbers of young priests and worshippers. Some of them cultivate a fogyish, holier-than-thou manner that gets up the nose of ordinary Catholics — but most of them are breathing new life into a moribund Church. Pope Francis loathes them. In 2020, with no warning, he banned many of their Latin Masses, and according to multiple sources, at a meeting with seminarians in December he ranted against “f%#%@#$ careerists who f%@# up the lives of others”. In his defence, perhaps the words were less vulgar in Spanish. Then again, it’s no secret in the Curia that the air turns blue when the Vicar of Christ is displeased.

 

[Valin]

Late Journalist George Neumayr Warned: ‘The Clock On Catholic Civilization Is Nearing Midnight’

George Neumayr’s tireless attempts to sound the alarm on the corruption rotting the Catholic Church must not be lost in the ether.Carina Benton
January 31, 2023

(Snip)

Neumayr clearly intended this in jest. He knew he was no favorite among U.S. bishops, owing to his dogged pursuit of the corrupt and the compromised. He was always prepared to name names and get his hands dirty. In 2018, he revealed the location where serial sex abuser, pedophile, and disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was apparently in hiding after his fall from grace, a cushy mansion allegedly owned by the Archdiocese of Washington, and where auxiliary Bishop Mario Dorsonville was also supposed to be living. When Washington Post journalist Elizabeth Bruenig also repeatedly dropped by, looking for answers, a representative of the Archdiocese of Washington complained to her editor. But with the cat truly out of the bag, McCarrick was hurriedly banished to safer quarters in a distant Kansas friary.

Late last year, Neumayr was giving Bishop Barry Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, a run for his money. In 2018, Knestout, an ally to McCarrick, appointed one Rev. Wayne Ball as pastor of St. Augustine Catholic Parish in Chesterfield, Virginia. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, in December 2002, while pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Norfolk, Virginia, Ball pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex offense after he was arrested with another Richmond man when they were sprung together in a parked car at a local park. Knestout did not make parishioners aware of this when he appointed Ball.

Neumayr was understandably appalled when the United States Bishops, at their fall general assembly just last November, actually elected Knestout to chair the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People. Neumayr demanded that Knestout resign or be removed from the position.

(Snip)

[Valin]

BREAKING: FBI sent undercover agents into Catholic churches to investigate domestic extremism

"This outreach plan even included contacting so-called 'mainline Catholic parishes' and the local 'diocesan leadership.'"
The Post Millennial
Apr 10, 2023

The Weaponization of Government Committee has discovered that the FBI sent undercover agents into Catholic churches to investigate those parishes for domestic extremism. 

"Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee," Jim Jordan writes in a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray, "we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith." 

Jordan notes that this "shocking information" and that it "reinforces" the need for the FBI to respond to the committee's subpoenas and requests for information. He brings up the leaked bulletin from an FBI field office in Richmond earlier this year which identified Catholics who attend Latin Mass as potential domestic extremists.

(Snip)

 

[Valin]

On 4/10/2023 at 5:00 PM, Valin said:

BREAKING: FBI sent undercover agents into Catholic churches to investigate domestic extremism

Meanwhile.....

Biden’s DOJ recommends no jail time for abortion activist who vandalized church, assaulted worker

H/T

Apr 13, 2023
Megyn Kelly is joined by Andrew Klavan, host of “The Andrew Klavan Show”, to discuss Biden’s DOJ recommending no jail time to a woman who assaulted a church employee and was charged with an anti-Christian hate crime, the contrast in treatment to a Planned Parenthood protestor, the ongoing story of the FBI targeting Catholics, and more.