From the Editor's Desk...

Our Generation’s

Humanae Vitae

Moment

v Are we to allow everyone from the New York Times to the most insignificant blogger in his mother’s basement to go right ahead and critique the Pope’s novel, non-infallible, non-binding chitchat however they please while faithful Catholics observe a bizarre gag order imposed by nineteenth century ultramontanism?

By Michael J. Matt

Even as Ronnie Milsap was Lost in the Fifties Tonight many Catholics feel lost in the seventies every night during the sad pontificate of Pope Francis. I guess it's felt banners and Kumbaya all over again, God help us! And it is preposterous to blame the media or bad translations or a second shooter on the grassy knoll for the shenanigans going on inside the Vatican. To wit, Bishop of Rome Francis delivered yet another papal bombshell in his interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera (March 5), wherein he suggests that the Catholic Church could "tolerate some types of nonmarital civil unions as a practical measure to guarantee property rights and health care." Whatever happened to the third Spiritual Work of Mercy called admonishing the sinner. Would the Holy Father call for the same generous allowances for cohabiting pedophiles?

If not, why not? Has the Church abandoned her teaching on the intrinsic

~ See Editor's Desk/ Page 2

From the Editor's Desk...

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evil of homosexual acts? Let’s be honest, if I’m a homosexual I’m going to feel a whole lot less inclined to give up my soul-damning vice when the Holy Father himself is out there defending my inalienable right to healthcare and property.

Now Francis did note that the Church would not change its teaching against artificial birth control but should take care to apply it with "much mercy". What does that mean? Has the Church failed to be merciful up until now? If not, why draw the distinction?

And how "much mercy" can come in to prohibiting intrinsically evil acts?

Are priests supposed to "suggest" that Catholics "make every effort" not to use the Pill "if at all possible"? Should we be encouraged to-oh, I don't know-give up contraception for Lent?

What would happen if the Holy Father came out tomorrow and said: "The Church is against the sexual abuse of children, but of course we must apply much mercy to those who abuse children." Would the neo-Catholics cry "pope bashing" if we were to question such bizarre papal language? So a moral distinction can now be drawn between one intrinsically evil act (contraception) and another (sexual abuse of children)?

What’s the end game to all of these "merciful and tolerant" directives? Do they not risk removing the immoral stigma formerly attached to sins that cry to heaven for vengeance? But, wait, there's more. Pope Francis also offered fulsome praise for Cardinal Walter Kasper's February 20th speech to the college of cardinals, which allowed for the possibility that "in very specific cases" the Church could "tolerate," though "not accept", a "second union" after divorce. Historian Roberto de Mattei summarized Kasper's speech as a "resounding revolution of culture and praxis", and yet Pope Francis not only praised it but waxed positively rhapsodic over Kasper's new book, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life wherein this same thesis is developed:

Yesterday, before falling asleep – though not in order to fall asleep!– I read– I re-read Cardinal Kasper's work, and I would like to thank him, because I found profound theology, also a serene thought in theology. It is nice to read serene theology. And also, I found that, of which St. Ignatius spoke to us: that sensus Ecclesiae , no? Love for Mother Church, right there, no? It did me good and I had an idea – and excuse me if I embarrass Eminence, but the idea is: this is called doing theology while kneeling.

Thank you. Thank you.

Is this a kind of payback for the Kasper-led coup d'état that was the last conclave? In an article that appeared in Il Foglio (translated into English at Rorate Caeli) Roberto de Mattei gets right to the heart of the problem with Kasper the Friendly Modernist:

Communion to remarried divorcees is denied because matrimony is indissoluble and none of the reasons adopted by Cardinal Kasper allows for the celebration of a new matrimony or the blessing of a pseudo-matrimonial union. The Church did not allow it to Henry VIII, losing the Kingdom of England, and will never allow it, because, as Pius XII recalled to the parish priests of Rome March 16, 1946: 'The matrimony between baptized, validly contracted and consummated, cannot be dissolved by any power on earth, not even by the Supreme Church Authority.'

So what's next? We won't know until the Vatican’s Synod on the Family in October; but it doesn't look good.

One thing is certain, this is not the moment for faithful Catholics to grow silent. We are obviously facing our generation’s Humanae Vitae moment, which obligates us to do what our fathers did back in1968-make our voices of protest resound off of the dome of St.

Peter itself. Of course our neo-Catholic friends don't agree. In fact, they seem eager to return to the halcyon days of the Tradition-bashing 1970s, which is why The Remnant has come under renewed attack for "criticizing the Holy Father".

I responded to our most prominent critic in last week's The Remnant Underground: http://youtu.be/ zLN2u0PLOa8 but I wish to assure our print subscribers that The Remnant has no intention of laying off its measured critiques of this increasingly troubling pontificate, which in many ways is unprecedented in its novelties.

How many popes in the Middle Ages, for example, or in any period of history before 1965, were out there chatting up journalists, giving off-thecuff interviews, speaking casually about any number of moral, political and social issues, with the entire world hearing all about it on the evening news? We're not talking about criticizing ex-cathedra statements here, but rather papal chitchat. And so to our neo-Catholic friends we would ask: Are we to allow everyone from the New York Times to the most insignificant blogger in his mother’s basement to go right ahead and critique the Pope’s novel, non-infallible, non-binding chitchat however they please, while faithful Catholics observe a bizarre gag order imposed by nineteenth century ultramontanism?

This, it seems to me, places all constructive criticism in the hands of those who have no love for the Church and who will spin the Pope's words as negatively as they please, while faithful Catholics are left in the ridiculous position of having to endorse every papal hiccup as having been inspired by the Holy Ghost. This borders on the blasphemous and enjoys no foundation in Catholic teaching.

The reason sedevacantists tend to dislike The Remnant is because very few have done more than Remnant writers (beginning with Michael Davies) to expose the errors of that thesis, while demonstrating how and why papal novelties do not violate papal infallibility and do not constitute reason sufficient to give up on the Church or conclude the gates of hell have prevailed.

Constructive criticism is just that— constructive, and the list of constructive Catholic critics who spoke out against problematic pontificates in history is not short. (See John Rao's article on Page 14 of this issue).

We would argue that Catholic silence in the face of papal novelty is itself a novelty and can cause good people to lose heart and even despair, which is why competent Catholic commentators have a duty to speak out respectfully, as loyal sons of the Church, when the Pope's own words serve at catalyst to scandalize the faithful or delight the enemies of the Church.

Pray for the Holy Father. The Devil is at work, and there may still be time to thwart his efforts to run the human element of the Church into the ground.

Between now and October, I can think of no more urgent prayer intention than for the Holy Father—not for his "intentions", but for Peter himself that his "faith fail not" and that "being once converted, he may confirm the brethren" rather than scandalize them. (Luke 22:32) v