As a Catholic, watching the papacy of Francis I play out has been, at best, disheartening.
While he attacks traditional Catholics as 'rigid', and severely prohibits the celebration of the Latin Mass, he gives a pass to the very left-wing German bishops who defy church teaching, and the Vatican continues to use artwork by Fr. Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit (like Pope Francis) who was expelled from his order for 'refusal to observe the vow of obedience', with multiple allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct, including with nuns.
VATICAN: The #Vatican & Dicastery for Communication continues to use images by disgraced Fr. Marko Rupnik in its regular liturgical calendar, as shown for December. https://t.co/i3OWnRF6Fx
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) November 29, 2023
Below – the images for the feasts of the Immaculate Conception & the Holy Family. pic.twitter.com/iapNCjpU7q
The allegations are horrific
I saw earlier that a memo went out to push back on Rupnik stuff post-Burke (“he’s not the only priest to be accused of sex abuse! why focus on him?!”)
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) November 30, 2023
This. This is why. Because despite him demanding nuns drink his semen from a chalice, the Vatican can’t end its love affair. https://t.co/bOG3wUPfkb
And yet, as was mentioned above, the Vatican seems a-okay with Rupnik.
It's the hypocrisy, and the unjust, ham-fisted manner in which Pope Francis exercises his authority that is most appalling and disappointing.
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But this piece isn't about his treatment of traditional Catholics, his apparent leniency towards men like Rupnik, or his ignoring the German bishops.
It's about his disgraceful -- and, frankly, wrong -- stance on Israel.
In a phone call that has not previously been reported, The Pope told the President of Israel that it is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror.”
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 30, 2023
⁰Herzog protested, repeating the position that the Israeli government was doing what was needed in Gaza to defend its own… pic.twitter.com/9MCkMW3wkn
It is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror,” Francis said, according to a senior Israeli official familiar with the call, which has not been previously reported.
Herzog protested, repeating the position that the Israeli government was doing what was needed in Gaza to defend its own people. The pope continued, saying those responsible should indeed be held accountable, but not civilians.
That private call would inform Israeli interpretations of Francis’s polemic statement, at his Nov. 22 general audience in St. Peter’s Square, that the conflict had “gone beyond war. This is terrorism.” Taken with the diplomatic exchange — deemed so “bad” by the Israelis that they did not make it public — the implication seemed clear: The pope was calling their campaign in Gaza an act of terrorism.
Calling Israel's response to Hamas's actual terror attack on 10/7 terrorism is beyond the pale and an embarrassment for the Vatican and Catholics the world over.
It also flies in the face of eons of Catholic teaching regarding just war.
“Respectfully, your Holiness, Israel is not a Catholic State, it is a Jewish state, and we have little interest in your views of what is forbidden or allowed. Good morning.” https://t.co/Tve5fuu8qC
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 30, 2023
This is the exact response Israel should have.
If the world’s only Jewish state can’t tell the Pope, politely but firmly, to mind his own business, then they might as well fold
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 30, 2023
Correct.
So what is Catholic doctrine pertaining to just war? Let's start at the beginning, with St. Augustine. From The National Catholic Register:
The classical Catholic just war account derives from St. Augustine (354-430), who himself draws upon the theories of Cicero and St. Ambrose. Augustine’s account was picked up with minor emendations by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), whose own rendering was normative for Catholic theorists from the Middle Ages. The Second Vatican Council re-presents the classical account placing much greater emphasis on the avoidance of war and offering a very forceful condemnation of the use of contemporary weapons of mass destruction (Gaudium et spes, 80). And the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2307-2317) develops the classical account by conceiving war as a means of legitimate societal self-defense.
Just war theory traditionally has been formulated as a set of moral principles that act as conditions that need to be met in order for the decisions entailed in launching and prosecuting wars to uphold the requisites of justice. The most important is that wars be waged to correct some manifest injustice; this is referred to as the principle of just cause. Others include that war must be the best available remedy for correcting the injustice, and therefore solutions short of war should be employed if possible (principle of last resort); that public authority — and public authority alone — rightly decide questions of going to war (principle of public authority); that all evil intentions must be excluded in war’s declaring and prosecuting (principle of rightful intention), which entails (inter alia) the wrongness of the intention to kill non-combatants (principle of discrimination); that there should be a reasonable probability of success; and that if waging war would bring about a worse state of affairs, or if actions in war are more violent than what is necessary to accomplish the war’s just aims, then having recourse to war would be unjust (principle of proportionality). Augustine and Aquinas include a condition not found in contemporary accounts, which prohibits declaring falsehoods and breaking promises to an enemy (principle of good faith), which does not however require that one’s purposes or the meanings of one’s actions be declared.
Of all these principles, the 'principle of just cause' -- that wars be waged to correct injustice -- is the most important. And it is a principle Israel has more than met. In fact, they've met all these principles. They've negotiated ceasefires, returned Palestinian prisoners, make every effort to avoid civilian casualties.
But let's go back to the principle of just cause.
Israel was attacked on October 7. 1,400 people -- men, women, children -- were killed. Women were raped and mutilated. Babies were beheaded and burned. Holocaust survivors were taken hostage and dragged into Gaza. Many hostages have been released, but the vast majority were malnourished or ill-treated in captivity.
Israel had every right to respond.
The fact that Hamas routinely uses civilian outposts -- including mosques and hospitals -- as military bases is not justification to tell Israel they are committing acts of terror.
Hamas is wrong.
Hamas is evil.
Hamas kills innocent civilians -- whether Israeli or Palestinian..
Hamas has made it very, very clear they wish to annihilate the Jews and wipe Israel off the map.
And yet Pope Francis chides Israel for 'terrorism' while his condemnations of Hamas have not been nearly as vocal or stern.
Spare me.
I’m an observant Catholic and I have less and less of a f@@k of what this man has to say on matters of my faith or anything else.
— MoG1717 (@mog1717) November 30, 2023
Leaders begin to lose the trust of their followers when they engage in rank hypocrisy. The attacks on the Latin Mass, the blind eye to people like Rupnik, the left-wing agenda he espouses more frequently than Catholic doctrine: all of this speaks volumes about him, and none of it good.
I have been a Catholic since 2005; I have attended the Latin Mass. I lived through the sexual abuse scandal and the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I've been through a divorce and an annulment. It doesn't take a degree in theology to see that Pope Francis has his priorities out of whack.
It's very easy to excuse it as 'Jesuits gonna Jesuit' (they are, after all, a very left-leaning order these days), but he is the religious leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, the largest Christian denomination on the planet.
He should conduct himself under, and be held to, a higher standard.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2309) is also very clear on when war is justified:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The Catechism concludes:
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
The Pope likes to talk about the 'common good' when he's telling us to end fossil fuels (which will impoverish millions and cause societal regression), but refuses to acknowledge Israel is acting in the common good of its citizens. Citizens surrounded by hostile nations who very vocally call for its destruction. Who carry out smaller acts of terror frequently. Who celebrate when death and destruction befall Israel.
Israel does not indiscriminately attack Gaza, or its other neighbors. It does, however, defend its civilians and does wage war when provoked. As they should.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen also weighed in on just war:
The Christian, in opposition to the spirit of the world, should think of war first and primarily in terms of justice. Whenever there is justice there is freedom, but when there is freedom, there is not always justice..."Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice," and "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Of all the people on the planet who should have the moral clarity to see this, it should be Pope Francis. He should be a many of holiness and not holier-than-thouness.
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