And Democrats breath a sigh of relief: nobody will be talking about Maryland Man for a week.
That aside, this passing hits a lot differently from the death of St John Paul II. There is a deep divide over Pope Francis among Catholics – and probably among all those who take religion at all seriously. I’m not at moved as I was by John Paul’s death. This is because Pope Francis never captured the public imagination – but, then again, most Pope’s don’t. A John Paul II is a rare bird – someone universally respected and deeply beloved by the faithful. So, let’s not try to fuss with comparisons here.
The Papacy of Francis was ordained by God. We Catholics cannot believe otherwise. We might not fully see the reason, but there is one and it will all work to fulfill God’s plan. My view remains as it has been since Francis was elected: we did need to break down the barriers to entry into the faith. Too many were starting to look at being Catholic as a checklist…you must do A, B and C or you’re not Catholic. To be sure, there are the unmovable things of the faith – and Pope Francis was vigorous in defending these things. But he was right when he said that the Sacraments were medicine on the battlefield of life, not a reward for perfection.
I have prayed for the repose of his soul and I hope everyone will. From what we can tell, he did live a blameless life and I’m confident he is with God at this time. The Church will now select a new Pope and we will go on…and it should be noted that all around the world, the number of people entering the Church seems to be increasing. That is part of Pope Francis’ legacy and should not be forgotten.
Blogs For Victory 
I don’t think the growing number of people entering into or returning to the Catholic church has much if anything to do with Francis. That seems more a situation of timing. The more likely scenario IMO is a reflection of the building turmoil in the world, the real prospect of WWIII happening in the near future, the leftists race to jump off the edge of the cliff and drag anyone they can along with them, and similar realizations that without God, hope is lost. When things are humming along societies tend to forgo giving thanks to the One who provides abundance. But only when things start looking dire do they return. While I pray for all souls to reunite in heaven, I do not mourn Bergoglio’s passing. My biggest concern for the Catholic church at this time is his replacement, given that he stacked the voting cardinals with like minded people while at the same time stripped good cardinals from their positions. While Francis did vocally hold some of the positions the Catholic church stresses, he also created much unnecessary confusion and diminished or restricted the good works of many priest, bishops, nuns and lay people. He was most definitely not a unifier. On top of that, Francis appeared far more interested in social political issues than tending to the Lords flock, to the point where he became more divisive than just his internal church conflict.
The Left has a lot of appeal in South America and a slightly different face but it still represents, to the naive, virtue and kindness and all touchy-feely “good things” and is therefore attractive to people already inclined toward spirituality and service.
One area where I would like to see a moderation in the Church is its attitude toward divorce. It is, right now, pretty hypocritical, as we saw when it granted John Kerry an “annulment” for a nearly two-decades-long marriage, with children, that had been sanctified by the Church, so he could then marry a wealthy woman who refused to marry a “divorced” man. I know of two Catholic marriages that ended not only with no fault attached to the women but in spite of their efforts to avoid divorce, and in today’s world where one member of a marriage can unilaterally end it basically on a whim it is cruel to deny the injured spouse the comfort of the sacraments. I think this change alone would either bring millions back into the Church or send a good message to those who have considered joining the Church but felt excluded because of this teaching.
With relation to divorce / annulment / marriage within the Catholic church, it is somewhat difficult for me to understand why the church holds a few stances. For example, why would the church prevent the dissolvement of marriage when grave considerations occur such as extreme spousal abuse or threat of death? The church allows for separation but not the possibility of remarrying withing the church absent of death of a spouse. Also, according to the church, a requirement of marriage is partly about procreation where preexisting and permanent impotence renders a party incapable of marriage. That specific requirement seems to eliminate the possibility of a couple who knowingly are unable to have their own children to marry and attempt adoption.
It also ignores the spiritual needs of older Catholics who can’t reproduce but don’t want to be cut off from the sacraments.
To be honest, I haven’t followed Pope Francis closely. I’d venture to say, most of what I know about him was from comments on this blog.
Pope Francis was to the Vatican what Joe Biden was to America.
Prelude to the Van Hollen stunt:
The Dangerous Tradition of Democratic Shadow Diplomacy
A reminder that the Left has always skirted outright insurrection when Republicans have been in power, working to undermine Republican presidents.
Excellent piece.
We not only have members of Congress trying to overturn Presidential acts and attempting direct negotiations with a head of state, a Representative is even taking it upon himself to threaten heads of state if they tick off Dems:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has sunk to a new low, vowing political retribution against foreign leaders who dare to work with President Donald Trump in a stunning display of political pettiness and desperation.
Dems will exact retribution when (?) they regain political power. During an episode on “Pod Save America,” Raskin threatened world leaders (who) “facilitated authoritarianism in our country” by helping Trump advance his agenda, saying that the Democratic Party would not “look kindly” on them when they “come back to power.”
The Left is becoming more and more violent by the day and prominent Democrats are encouraging it. And we are only 90 days in lol. They need to be held accountable.
They need to be held accountable.
Agreed. And to be effective, accountability has to be orderly, precise and inarguable. I expect some action taken against Rankin for his threats to heads of state, threats made by a sitting member of Congress, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Logan Act used to deal with the antics of those who went to El Salvador. Mangione will either get life without parole or the death sentence and Anthony will be convicted. The Left has avoided escalating its “protests” into violence, but its quieter efforts have still gotten foreign students expelled and some institutions have lost millions/billions in federal funding. At some point Crockett is going to step over the line into specific and overt threats of violence, opening up some kind of action against her.
But what I would really like to see would be coordinated campaigning against Dems, carefully crafted critiques of low-class thuggery and the need to rise above this. Let them continue escalating their rhetoric, keeping track and archiving it all, and then assembling it into devastating campaign material.
Catholics will be watching the Vatican to see which direction the Church is going to be led/shoved.
One alleged contender, Pietro Parolin is described as a “continuity contender” which I take to mean just another Francis.
In other words, the kind of Pope who would continue the erosion of the Church. Taken on their own, words like “modernist” and “pragmatist” and “idealist” are positive, but when used to define a man whose job is to hew to the actual teachings of the Church they sound like excuses to replace Church teachings with non-religious agendas. His description essentially admits this when it notes that he has been described as someone who “places ideology and diplomatic solutions above hard truths of the faith.“
One named contender, José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, has among other things aligned himself with a “ feminist Benedictine sister who favours women’s ordination and is pro-choice“. When a priest, not to mention a cardinal, “aligns” himself with a nun who advocates for the killing of unborn children there is certainly the perception that he, himself, does not find this a disqualifying characteristic for a member of the clergy. That is concerning.
Robert Sarah, 79, Guinea, is interesting and deserves to be considered based on the tiny thumbnail sketch provided in the article.
There has been concern about the perception that Francis packed the College of Cardinals with fellow travelers, other Liberals willing to discard or at least look past some teachings of the Church to enact political agendas, and certainly there are some. I don’t know the source of the Guardian article cited here, but while it does include some radical Leftist types it also lists some conservative cardinals as possible contenders. We can only hope and pray that one of them prevails.
Based on the descriptions provided, Sarah and Erdo are the only 2 from that list that appears to have the propensity to return the church back to its more unifying, traditional roots. Given that the majority of current cardinals were brought in by Francis, that seems like a long shot. I read today there are a large group of traditionalist who plan on loudly praying in Latin in St. Peter’s Square during the conclave voting to help encourage a more conservative selection. Cardinal Sarah’s 80’s birthday is in June which would typically exclude him from voting, but the laws governing these elections requires that voting take place prior to that date. It will be interesting to see if his vote / influence makes a difference.
Doubt that it will be a liberal Pontiff – we’ll see how it goes but the left side took it all very much too far during Francis’ tenure and I think that most cardinals – especially African cardinals – see the need to retrench at bit back to orthodoxy.
Naturally, the Left, with the reliable assistance of the Leftist wing of the Catholic Church, is trying to callously use the death of the Pope to attack a prominent Republican.
They are claiming that Marjorie Taylor Greene was celebrating the death of the Pope after this:
While she may have been trolling the Leftist hysterics (apologies for redundancy) the comment also requires a lot of subjective “interpretation” to mount a convincing meltdown. She points out that other things also happened, such as Klaus Schwab stepping down as head of the WEF and being investigated for various crimes.
re: MTG—-there is a lot to like about her but just as much to dislike. I have been pleased to see another foot-in-mouth young Representative, Lauren Boebert, mature and learn from her mistakes, turning into what appears to be a reasoned and effective representative for her constituency and the state of Colorado in general, but MTG seems to take smug pleasure in tossing out stink bombs just to stir things up and it’s time for her to grow up as well.
It was also discouraging to see two other Republican voices with great potential beclowning themselves in a petty spat that quickly degenerated into gross insults and, in my mind, deterioration of respect for both of them. Both Laura Loomer and Dana Loesch have shown promise, but both recently wasted a lot of any respect they may have earned throughout their somewhat rocky and uneven introductions to conservative political commentary.