Popes Francis and Benedict Trashed by Lying Prelates and Their Toady Deacons [UPDATED]

Actually, they were trying to praise Francis at Benedict's expense, but wound up making Francis sound small and petty, thus trashing both men with their lies.

Elizabeth Scalia has the story. Read it there and then my comments below will make sense. But here's the money quote:

By now you’re dying to know the story, but I will not repeat it, because that would be a backward obedience to the father of lies. I will tell you that the tale purports to be about a cruel and utterly bitchy remark, made by Francis (as he was vesting as pope for the first time) and directed to an underling only doing his job; moreover the bitchiness was understood to be a swipe against Francis’ predecessor, Benedict.

I am just sick enough, though, to suspend any last vestiges of tact and grace that still reside within me and call this vicious little rumor out as the Pure-D Bullshit I believe it to be.

[...]

No, the snippy little remark we have seen attributed to Francis and repeated in sad places (to, apparent applause in sad pews) seems like the fantasy of a soured spirit — the thoughts of a craven kind of person — perhaps a Cardinal whose own career is cornered and against the wall, imagining what he would have said and done had he been elected, and loving it so much, he just has to share it.

Perhaps the sort of man who spent the first few days after the papal election swanking around Rome, and social media, dropping remarks that made him sound like a 14 year-old fashion reporter settling scores with an editor who banished him from further attempts at his own designs. So small and venal he was even content to misrepresent the point of the traditional red shoes of a pope — meant to symbolize the blood of martyrs that has propelled the church forward, all these centuries — by defining them down as a meaningless affectation.

Yes, that’s small and bitchy. From a “prince” of the church...

That's some bold speculation on Elizabeth's part, but I think she's probably correct as to the source of this rumor. And "bitchy" was my exact first thought when I heard the rumor (which I won't repeat here either, but there's plenty of other sources where you can find it).

Neither does Elizabeth name names, but I will. The speculation is that the false quote attributed to Pope Francis originated with the disgraced reprobate Cardinal Mahony, and the story was passed on to a deacon of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Eric Stoltz (no, not the actor), who related it to his congregation - DURING MASS - and to wild applause. And then bragged about it via social media afterward (it's even included on his Facebook cover photo ... jerk). Sorta like his former boss:

Yes, Elizabeth's description "bitchy" fits quite well. 


UPDATE
More on the rumor/lie from La Stampa (NOTE: I said earlier in this post that I wouldn't repeat the rumor here, but it does appear in the quoted text below):

... But urban myths started to circulate within the first few hours of his papacy. According to one of these rumours, straight after his election, Francis apparently refused to wear the red velvet mozzetta trimmed with (synthetic) ermine, saying to the Master of Papal Ceremonies, Guido Marini: “You can wear it! The carnival’s over.” A rude and boorish comment to make to the Master of Ceremonies. As far as Vatican Insider has learnt, said comment was never made. As Marini placed the mozzetta on Francis, the Pope simply said: “I would prefer you didn’t.” No reference was made [to] the carnival and no humiliating comment was made against the Master of Ceremonies....

(emphasis added)

Most people with a functioning moral compass recoil in horror at the thought that our humble Holy Father might say something as mean and nasty as that, which is why we know it, instinctively, not to be true. But, in those holding positions of authority in the Church who react with elation to this false story and gleefully spread it around, we are apparently not dealing with fully functioning moral compasses.

Episcopal Smackdown

This is a thing of beauty.

God bless Bishop Morlino and the holy priests for whom he went to bat.

(Hat tip. Fr. Finigan)

When Mikey Sean Winters is Crying ...

... that generally means there's cause for faithful Catholics (or at least those who try to be faithful and aren't in open dissent) to rejoice.


(Hat tip: Larry D)


UPDATE
A special thanks to Paul Zummo for this:




Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on that ugly, boorish, small-minded piece of work Michael Sean Winters:
Michael Sean Winters Reveals His Ugly, Boorish, Small-Minded Pettiness Via His Sullivanesque Obsession With Prof. Robert George [UPDATED]

Michael Sean Winters: "Deceitful Bogeyman" of the Catholic Left

Fr. Z Defends Well-Known Catholic Apologist Patrick Madrid ... [UPDATED]

REPOSTED and UPDATED: "... Dollars to Doughnuts ..."

"... Dollars to Doughnuts ..."

Creative Minority Reports Exposes Hypocrisy of National Catholic Reporter

National Catholic Reporter is "outraged" that someone would say something mean about the President. However, such "outrage" is blatantly selective, given the publication's own past with making "outrageous" comments about the previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Matthew Archbold does the legwork to expose the hypocrisy that, apparently, no one at National Catholic Reporter imagined would be done. Not that it takes much work to expose that bunch as complete frauds.

But I must say that the way in which Michael Sean Winters pivots and turns what begins as a (perhaps deserved) blast against TV commentator Glenn Beck into a wholly gratuitous diatribe against Prof. Robert George is an impressive sight to behold. One doesn't aquire that knack for tenuous guilt by association without lots of practice. It has to be finely honed into the artform as practiced by folks like Mikey and his good friend Tony A. Indeed, it would seem that Mikey and his good friend Tu Quoque Tony must be comparing notes.

The Illustrated Progressive Catholic Alphabet

Larry D has a laugh-out-loud-funny idea for a book at Acts of the Apostasy. Head on over to read the first installment of The Illustrated Progressive Catholic Alphabet.

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Obama's Catholic Strategy: Divide and Conquer

I've speculated in the past that President Obama's "Catholic strategy" was one of divide and conquer, pitting an "alternative magisterium" espoused by dissident Catholics as equally "Catholic" to the teachings of the Pope and the Bishops.

Opinion columns like this and this from Catholic politicos who appear more loyal to the President than they do the Pope seem to bear my theory out.

Now, Tom Hoopes at National Catholic Register is wondering the same thing:

Does Obama have a conscious “divide and conquer” strategy with Catholics?

University of Alabama political scientist professor Michael New thinks so (in our news story on Dr. Benjamin).

Appointing pro-abortion Catholics “has the political advantages of showing that 1) there is disagreement among Catholics about sanctity-of-life issues and that 2) Catholics who support legal abortion can be successful politically.”

Remember what President Clinton did: He pitted others against each other, then “triangulated” above them, getting what he wanted by staying out of the fray.

Obama has positioned himself as the classy guy who’s above the fray: the Notre Dame speech giver, the president who met with Catholic journalists and with the Pope. He looks magnanimous; those of us who complain about pro-abortion Catholics look like the petty, small-minded ones.

But remember: Those who believe that some human beings’ right to life just doesn’t matter, however well they have mastered the game, can never claim the moral high ground. They are being played for fools by the abortion industry, and history will put them on the list of people who cooperated with the greatest evil of our day...

Fr. Z Fisks Silliest Man Ever to Have Donned a Collar (Even if the Only Time He Dons It Is For Appearances on NBC)

Read it here.

I'm not sure what the bigger scandal is: that Notre Dame is using its commencement ceremony to honor a pro-abortion President, or that Notre Dame continues to employ this silly man on the faculty of its Theology Dept.

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Doping Scandal Hits U.S. Catholic Bishops

(Hat tip: Regular Guy Paul, posting at Southern Appeal)

This is funny:

... According to a Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, federal investigators are drafting subpoenas on behalf of several unnamed elected members of Congress. Indications are the subpoenas will be served before week's end, and that the Bishops to be summoned are Archbishop Burke, Bishop Martino and Archbishop Chaput. If so, a Senate subcommittee hearing might be scheduled as soon as early March.

Allegations of steroid abuse comes as sweet justice to many progressive groups, including Gimme Back My Church. Agnes Flurferstine, co-director of Gimme Back My Church, is especially pleased.

"There is no way that these bishops are not doping," she said, resplendent in a silver-blue pantsuit with matching hair. "Their recent statements regarding Catholic politicians are much too powerful to not be enhanced in some way."

When asked what type of illegal substances the bishops might be taking, Agnes was reticent in her reply. "Well, I'm not sure what they're called out on the street. We don't rely on unnatural substances in our organization - we rely solely on the Spirit of Vatican 2."

One substance these bishops are rumored to be taking is called "Vitamin B16". The reported effects of "Vitamin B16" are increased boldness, improved resistance to liberal public opinion, and pronounced Magisterial teaching. Another suspected substance is "Vicar's VapoRub", a topical cream that is very difficult to test for, and extremely powerful. According to an unverified lab report, its use can only be detected by heightened levels of liberal Catholic Internet outrage, usually within 24 hours of use, and sustained for days and weeks afterwards.

[More]

"What Happened to the Friendly Lady Vicar with the Colorful Jumper?"

Contradictions

(Hat tip: Rich Leonardi at Ten Reasons)

The Top 10 Contradictory Attitudes of the 60's Bunch.

And The Curt Jester has added 10 more for good measure.


How about this one?

Ecumenicalism is good.

Working with evangelicals on pro-life and other causes in support of the traditional family is bad.

TIME: "Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?" [UPDATED]

(Hat tip: The Curt Jester)

TIME Magazine, which failed to include Pope Benedict among its "TIME 100", wants to know whether the Holy Father's recent visit to America signaled the end of "liberal Catholicism":

He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

***
To some extent, liberal Catholicism has been a victim of its own success. Its positions on sex and gender issues have become commonplace in the American Church, diminishing the distinctiveness of the progressives. More importantly, they failed to transform the main body of the Church: John Paul II, a charismatic conservative, enjoyed the third-longest papacy in church history, and refused to budge on the left's demands; instead, he eventually swept away liberal bishops. The heads at Call to Action grayed, and by the late 1990s, Vatican II progressivism began to look like a self-limited Boomer moment.

Then, the movement received a monstrous reprieve. The priest sex abuse scandal implicated not only the predators, but the superiors who shielded them. John Paul remained mostly silent. A new reform group, Voice of the Faithful, arose; the old anger returned, crystallizing around the battle-cry "They just don't get it."

Benedict's visit, however, changed the dynamic. And that's a problem for progressives. Says Fr. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center whom Benedict famously removed from his previous job as editor of America, "Reform movements need an enemy to organize against. As most bishops have gotten their acts together on sex abuse, they have looked less like the enemy and more like part of the solution. Enthusiasm for reform declined. With the Pope's forthright response, it will decline even more."

[More]

My Comments:
Of course, we've known for a while that "The Scandal" has been "the last great rallying point" of so-called "progressive" Catholics who want to use it as a means of calling into question the Church's moral authority on important issues and cowering into silence those who appeal to that authority.

In fact, a moniker has been given to invocations of that particular ad hominem rhetorical device (see "Anderson's Law", or whatever you want to call it).

At any rate, it looks like the "We Are Church" crowd is going to have to find a new whipping boy.


UPDATE
Fr. Z's take on the TIME article.

Michael Moore Compares Wright's "God Damn America" and "Government Created AIDS" to Catholic Teaching on Birth Control and Priestesses

The Curt Jester has the details:

Larry King: What about how he's handled the Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright thing?

Michael Moore: Jeez, you know, I mean I go to Mass still. I'm a practicing Catholic. I've been that way all my life. But if I had -- if I had gotten up every time I heard a priest from the pulpit in my travels around the country say things like I've heard them say, that birth control is a sin, that women should not be priests, that women should have a different role in church ...

[More]

Newsweek's Nasty Take on Pope Benedict

(Hat tip: Christopher Blosser)

Newsweek's hateful senior editor Lisa Miller writes:

It's not just his unfortunate visage that puts people off [ED.: Not only is Pope Benedict extremely ugly, ...], or his predilection for the more outré aspects of papal fashion (antique chapeaux and ermine-trimmed capes) [ED.: ... and not only does the Pope wear all that weird Catholic stuff, ...], or his decades employed as John Paul's theological enforcer [ED.: ... and not only did he really piss all us liberals off during his years as Grand Inquisitor when he didn't let us use Vatican II as an excuse to do whatever the hell we wanted with Catholic doctrine, ...]. It's that Benedict is a Christian believer first and an intellectual second [ED.: ... but what really gets us is that the Pope really does take all that faith stuff and his role as the leader of the Church seriously, ...], a man who shows little comfort on the global stage with the messiness of human life and politics [ED.: ... and he isn't secular enough when it comes to seeing the world and how it should work in the same way all us enlightened people do.].

Voice of the Faithful to "Get Message Out" During Papal Visit

Dave Hartline at The Catholic Report links to this ad from "Voice of the Faithful" calling for a "transformed Church". The ad will apparently run leading up to and/or during the Holy Father's visit to the U.S.

And to Think We Were Almost Spared ...

From Catholic News Service (via National Catholic Reporter):

It was 1966 and Mercy Sr. Suzanne Toolan had been asked to write a song for an event in the San Francisco archdiocese. With the deadline looming, she worked on a song in an unoccupied room next to the infirmary in the Catholic girls’ high school where she taught.

“I worked on it, and I tore it up. I thought, ‘This will not do,’ ” Toolan said. “And this little girl came out of the infirmary and said, ‘What was that? That was beautiful!’ I went right back and Scotch-taped it up.”

That schoolgirl saved “I Am the Bread of Life,” one of the most popular hymns of the Second Vatican Council era...

Fr. Longenecker has an interesting take on the sad state of modern Catholic hymnody, and actually mentions the "Bread of Life" song:

... Another problem are hymns that simply put Scripture verses to music. "I am the bread of life...he who comes to me shall not hunger...etc" Again, the music may be pleasant and the words of Scripture are undeniably wonderful and true, but it simply isn't a hymn. The words are the words of Jesus about himself. They are not words of praise, worship and adoration addressed to God...

Catholic Lecture Series Opens at Toledo's Corpus Christi Parish

From The Toledo Blade:

The Rev. James Bacik will open the 25th Annual Fall Lecture Series at his church, Corpus Christi University Parish, with a talk at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow on "Renewing the Ordained Priesthood: Radical Solutions and Short-Term Approaches."

The six speakers in the series, which continues each Tuesday through Oct. 30, will address the topic of "Voices for Renewal in the Church," as well as the call to discipleship for all in the 21st century.

Father Bacik, a graduate of Oxford University, is pastor of Corpus Christi and author of a number of books, including Catholic Spirituality, Its History and Challenge.

He said his lecture will address the way Vatican II changed the "emphasis points" of the priesthood.

"Priests are often said to be representatives of Christ as priests, prophets, and kings or shepherds," Father Bacik said. "Vatican II put more emphasis on the pastoral role, that is the shepherding, or the overseer of the community, which changes the understanding of what a priest is all about."

The series will continue with lectures each Tuesday through Oct. 30, starting at 5:30 p.m. in the church, 2955 Dorr St., with a question-and-answer session to follow.

In addition to Father Bacik, the scheduled speakers are:

• Oct. 2: Richard Gaillardetz, author, theologian, and professor of Catholic studies at the University of Toledo, speaking on "Renewing the Baptismal Priesthood: Reflections on Becoming an Adult Church."

• Oct. 9: The Rev. James Alison, Catholic theologian and author of The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter Eyes, on "Taking Responsibility for Catholic Renewal: Desire, Imagination, and Institution in a Voluntary Church."

• Oct. 16: Elizabeth Johnson, distinguished professor of systematic theology at Fordham University and author of Truly Our Sister, on "Frontiers of the Quest for the Living God."

• Oct. 23: Peter Steinfels, religion columnist for the New York Times and co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, on "Catholic Identity in a Secular Age."

• Oct. 30: The Rev. Ronald Rolheiser, author of The Holy Longing and president, Oblate School of Theology, on "The Gospel and Secularity: Being Missionaries to Our Own Children."

Tickets for individual lectures are $10 and series tickets for all six lectures are $25, available from Corpus Christi University Parish, 419-531-4992.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
This ought to be "interesting". I imagine the collective angst over Pope Benedict's "reform of the reform" will be palpable.


UPDATE
Be sure to read Dale Price's take on the cast of characters involved in this lecture series.