Reader Martin J. Ashwood responds to extremely online tradcath rancor toward St. John Paul the Great by citing this article:
John Paul II was also an exorcist, hated and feared by the devil, according to the famous exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth. Until the beginning of his pontificate, exorcisms were considered a “medieval” practice that was disappearing in the face of scientific advances in psychiatry, medicine and technology.
The pope who “came from a faraway country” approved an updated form of the Rite of Exorcism in 1998, nearly 400 years after the previous version was released. He himself had already performed the rite of exorcism inside the walls of the Vatican, as documented by the journalist David Murgia in a television program on TV2000, the radio and television network of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
When he was a still young priest—according to TV2000’s sources—the future Polish pope had performed exorcisms on various people with inexplicable maladies who were thought to be possessed.
Cardinal Jacques-Paul Martin, Prefect of the Papal Household during the pontificate of John Paul II, confirmed in his posthumous memoirs that the Polish pope had confronted the devil in the Vatican in 1982, freeing a young woman who had been the victim of diabolical possession.
If the Vatican’s most esteemed exorcist says a Pope was hated and feared by Satan, anyone who doubts that Pope’s sanctity should rethink his position.
The prelate recounts how the bishop of Spoleto, a region of Perugia in Umbria, requested an audience with the pope to present to him the case of Francesca.
It was March 27, 1982, when Francesca and her family crossed St. Peter’s Square. Doctors had been unable to solve the enigma and the woman was under the care of a priest who was an exorcist, and of her parish priest. Because her case was so inexplicable, Bishop Alberti of Spoleto brought the young woman before the Pope.
The pastor of Santa Assunta (Cesi-Terni), Father Baldini Ferroni, accompanied Francesca and her family to the Vatican and shares details of what happened. “They took us to a room where Pope Wojtyła was vesting for Mass.”
“She was emotionless. The pope took in hand the book of the rite of exorcism and began to read in Latin. The young girl trembled, although she had an absent expression on her face,” Father Ferroni recounts.
She began to roll around on the floor, shouting. “We could hear her shrieking. John Paul II had begun to pray, using various prayers,” the cardinal remembered.
After the rite of exorcism, Pope John Paul II asked those present not to worry and to keep praying for her. Francesca is fine now; she is married, has four children, and leads a normal life. Her possession has had no lasting effects, as her pastor confirmed when speaking to David Murgia, the journalist from TV2000.
This isn’t that difficult. The Devil has a vested interest in convincing the world he doesn’t exist. St. John Paul the Great reminded the world of Satan’s existence in no uncertain terms. And he built up the Church’s arsenal to fight Satan in the world.
Not only is denying JPII’s sainthood a cowardly slander against the faithful departed, it’s a serious attack on the authority of Holy Church herself. Canonizations of saints are counted among the Church’s infallible pronouncements. So denying an officially promulgated canonization betrays doubt in the Church’s indefectibility.
TradCaths should be aware that we already have a simple, direct, and precise term for such a position, and that term is “Protestantism”.
In addition to battling Satan, John Paul the Great worked to heal the rift between Catholics and Orthodox.
For a glimpse at a future world where the East-West Schism has been healed – and there are giant fighting robots – read my hit mecha thriller:
Whatever his faults, Pope Francis also has a keen awareness of the Adversary and his presence in the modern world, however much the press and the Neo-Ultramontanists (sometimes in multiple senses–has anyone declared Francis the Paraclete yet?) might want to gloss over it.
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2014/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20140411_devil-exists.html
Good find. Is he pastorally sloppy? Yes. Are his Equatorial personal politics cringeworthy? Yes.
No matter. He remains our Holy Father. And he speaks not on his own authority, but by the Word of the One whose vicar he is.
This is so good to hear. If you ever listened to those people talk, you would think Pope Francis had been publicly denying Christ every day for the past decade. Catholic media and Social Media is hardly any better than their secular counterparts for fomenting gossip and outrage, and listening to them cost me an enormous amount of worry years ago. If I hadn’t plugged out of such things I probably would have had a nervous breakdown and denied or seriously doubted the indefectible Nature of the Church. Actually, that fundamental fear, the gnawing doubt that maybe the Pope actually might turn around tomorrow and publicly bind us to heresy, seems to underlie and be the fundamental flaw in the whole Trad movement, the crack in the foundation that eventually leads to the building collapsing.
If you want a good example of that fear in real-time context, check out the latest article over at Crisis: https://www.crisismagazine.com/2022/its-not-for-the-pope-to-change
(No, the Holy Father has not changed Church teaching, at least not in any binding way. Both cases made so far easily can be read as matters of prudential judgment–perhaps wrong-headed and in certain readings of Amoris Laetitia’s case, contrary to divine law, but not fundamental doctrinal changes.)
I have to disagree. The article is right, or at least, partially right.
Pope Francis said things about the death penalty that are quite simply incorrect. He never bound the Church to his teaching on the death penalty, but what he said is contrary to the teaching of the Church. The article is exactly right – that is not for the Pope to change, but he put this in the Catechism.
Admittedly the issue with the Amoris Laetitia footnote is that it’s impossibly vague and he outright refuses to clarify.
My opinion on Pope Francis can be summed up by this article by Edward Feser, on the recent motu poprio:
“Catholic teaching has always acknowledged that popes can make grave mistakes of various kinds when they are not exercising the fullness of their authority in ex cathedra decrees. Usually, errant popes exhibit serious failings of only one or two sorts. But Pope Francis seems intent on achieving a kind of synthesis of all possible papal errors. Like Honorius I and John XXII, he has made doctrinally problematic statements (and more of them than either of those popes ever did). Like Vigilius, his election and governance have involved machinations on the part of a heterodox party. The Pachamama episode brings to mind Marcellinus and John XII. Then there are the bad episcopal appointments, the accommodation to China’s communist government, and the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which echo the mismanagement, political folly, corruption and decadence of previous eras in papal history. And now we have this repeat of Victor’s high-handedness. Having in this way insulted a living predecessor, might Francis next ape Pope Stephen VI by exhuming a dead one and putting the corpse on trial?
“Probably not. But absolutely nothing would surprise me anymore in this lunatic period in history that we’re living through.”
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/07/pope-victor-redux.html
My guess is that the birth control encyclical I suspect will be coming soon will be similar to Amoris Laetitia. It will be about some different but related topic like the importance of compassion or something, and then offhandedly at the end, in passing, or in a footnote, it will say something vague but suggestive like “We must make sure that people who make the choice, in hard situations, to use birth control are not treated like outcasts and are fully incorporated in the life of the church.”
I also doubt he’ll say anything that reaches the level of infallibility.
The article’s main fault lies in the fact that it’s presented in such a way as to invite scandal. In particular, the author hyperventilating about a possible conflict between Francis’ fallible teaching and the Church’s age-old, sometimes infallible teaching, undermining her teaching authority.
Fallible statements can by definition be wrong. This is not a new concept. That is why there’s a hierarchy of magisterial teaching. If a statement of lesser weight and antiquity would seem to gainsay a teaching of greater weight and antiquity, we prayerfully adhere to the weightier teaching of greater pedigree.
Feser has done a lot of good work, but here he’s peddling ahistorical nonsense.
John XII ran a pornocracy of a pontificate, using the Lateran Palace as a brothel.
That’s to say nothing of the Borgia and Medici popes.
Francis doesn’t even make the top 20 worst Supreme Pontiffs.
Before modern times 99% of Catholics had no idea what the Holy Father was up to. If that were the case now, a great many tradcaths would have lower blood pressure, but nothing would change ecclesiologically.
I think the “Francis is a heretic (or worse!) and the devil is winning!!!” position amounts to a black pill. Brian’s reminders that the same folks who get everything else wrong aren’t going to report accurately on the Pope either have helped me see that. As a Protestant, I honestly don’t have much skin in this game, but I do find these “Pope Still Catholic” posts reassuring.
I don’t think that Francis is formally heretical, and the devil can never win against Christ’s Church. I do think you can pretty objectively quantify Francis as one of the worst popes in the history of the Church and that he has made actual massive errors that he has nevertheless not bound anyone to believe on pain of sin, though he is sometimes so vague about it he makes it appear that he does.
No, Francis did not “change the Our Father”. He did write a document where he appeared to permit the Eucharist to be given to those in mortal sin, then when asked if that’s what he meant he refused to clarify. He did update the Catechism to include an objectively incorrect teaching on the death penalty. He has shuffled around abusers. He did restrict the Latin Mass without giving any clear statistical evidence how such a thing could help while doing nothing to crack down on abuse of the Novus Ordo.
Francis is the Holy Father, and we can and I do pray for him. But he is a terrible Pope.
The principle difference between this age and times prior is that the politicization of everything, amplified by the mass media, has conditioned most people to think of the Pope as just another world leader like Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, or Donald Trump.
The fact that Francis’ pontificate has survived the administrations of all the elected officials above should tell us something. His is not a neoliberal office beholden to the approval of the electorate. The papacy is a divinely instituted monarchy, not a sociological institution.
No disagreement there, but a lot of these errors are unforced. Angela Merkel didn’t make him write Amoris Laetitia. Donald Trump didn’t make him shuffle around known sex abusers. Boris Johnson didn’t convince the man to issue the Motu Proprio.
Feser is precisely right and I don’t think what you’re saying contradicts what he’s saying either.
Two things can be, and I think are, true:
1) Francis is a total disaster of a pope, one of the worst ever
2) Francis is the Vicar of Christ and legitimate heir to the throne of Peter, and the gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church.
Nothing you said contradicts Feser’s points. This is a “the 1950’s had issues too” response. Well yes, they did, but on balance I’ll take them over now. It’s an -inadvertent on your part and in this situation I’m sure – way to try and shut people up by saying that things always need to be like they are today.
Incidentally, having researched the Medici and Borgia Pope’s, I not only consider Francis to be ranked among the worst of them, I consider this to be fairly obvious if you know the historical record. They were as a group badly maligned.
The point of contrasting the Pope with secular leaders, and the one that Francis derangement syndrome sufferers always miss, is that their derision of him as a disastrous Pope is only made possible by viewing the papacy through a false political lens.
By their fruits shall you know them. The pontificates of JPII and B16 both saw large declines in the US Catholic population. In contrast, the number of US Catholics has seen a per capita increase during Francis’ reign.
“By your fruits” is a verse meant to teach us how to spot false prophets. I never said Francis was a false prophet. The Pope is the head of the pilgrim Church on earth; he is not himself the Church. All sorts of things I am sure are affecting the rise in U.S. Catholics. One thing that I am fairly convinced of is that it isn’t Francis. I explained why above.
I also have no idea what you’re trying to say anymore. I guess because JPII saw a decline in U.S. Catholics he shouldn’t be considered saintly after all?
Unless, of course, you think the papacy is a lot more complex than that (why would you focus on only U.S. numbers anyway unless there was something in the larger data you were trying to hide?). In that case, I agree. It’s once you dig into the details of the Francis papacy that the disastrous nature of it becomes more and more apparent.
Francis is the Vicar of Christ. Francis is an awful Pope, and we need too survive his terrible papacy. Both things can be true and both are true.
Not directly relevant, but I felt this deserved immediate attention:
Something which very likely is a Eucharistic Miracle has recently occurred in Mexico, and even more astonishingly, has been caught on camera! A Eucharistic Host, exposed for Adoration after Mass, appears to palpitate like a living heart! Here, you can see the footage for yourselves:
tinyurl.com/footageinquestion
This is honestly a mode of thinking I struggle to get my head around, which usually means I’m missing some nuance. I think the vast majority of protestants are in the same boat.
At what level are catholics allowed to disobey the pope without being sinful?
Catholics are bound to submit to all papal teaching on faith and morals, infallibly defined or not, unless a fallible teaching clearly contradicts an infallible definition or teachings which, though not solemnly defined, are of greater magisterial weight and/or are more in line with the ancient, consistent teaching of the Church.
It follows straight from logic:
>The Vicar of Christ teaches something on faith and morals
>Is it in keeping with the consistent magisterial tradition of the Church?
>Yes? OK.
>No?
>Does the suspect teaching meet Vatican I’s criteria for papal infallibility?
>No? Then it’s fallible.
>Does the fallible statement contradict prior magisterial statements of greater weight?
>Yes? Respectfully hold to the prior, more consistent teaching.
Okay, thanks!
I think a lot of us strawman the catholic position as a naive “do whatever the pope say”, without extending charity to your reasoning.
You’re welcome.
And it’s not like this is an issue average Catholics have to grapple with all the time. In the history of the Church, there are only 4 major conflicts of this kind.
Amoris Laetitia and Mulieris Dignitatem vs Casti Connubii and Arcanum Divinæ on women
JP II and Francis vs Quanta Cura on Church-state relations
Amoris Laetitia vs Veritatis Splendor on conscience and sin
and Fratelli Tutti vs Innocent III’s letter to the Waldensians on the death penalty.
The more ancient doctrines all have greater magisterial weight in each case (e.g. papal encyclicals & infallible definitions vs apostolic exhortations and speeches)*, so resolving these conflicts is pretty straightforward.
h/t Classical Theist
*There are degrees of precedence for different types of papal legislation. In descending order of importance, a pope can issue constitutions, encyclicals, and apostolic exhortations.