Louie Verrecchio: This pope, like his immediate predecessors, is utterly determined not to allow “the facts on the ground” to interfere with his view of the Second Vatican Council.

One enormous rotten fruit – complete with maggots

“Vatican II produced a renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical situation.”

Pope Francis obviously dwells in the same parallel universe from whence John Paul II said, “The vast majority of the pastors and the Christian people have accepted the liturgical reform in a spirit of obedience and indeed joyful fervor,” even as the real fruits of the post-conciliar liturgical reform were such that desolate parishes were being boarded up at an alarming rate in dioceses all over the world as he spoke.

Read 9 other observations about the Pope’s interview

Editor’s note: The “fathers” of Vatican II – and all the post-conciliar popes – evidently never heard the phrase, commonly attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”  

Catholics aren’t stupid. Nobody with any sense of history (or common sense) could look back on the last 50 years and see it as anything other than an unmitigated disaster for the Catholic Church – the bulk of it self-inflicted.

Last time I checked – telling lies – even with good intentions – was a sin! What we have here is a 50 year-long credibility gap that sullies virtually the entire Catholic hierarchy. What many of these clerics are doing is urging the faithful to live a lie! We expect that type of thing from cheap, tin-horn politicians – but not from Catholic bishops and popes. No wonder things are so fouled up!

According to the Catechism, the holy office of bishop is supposed to be the image of God the Father. I sincerely hope not, since – based on recent events – that would be blasphemy, on a very large scale! 

First, we have a pope who somewhat mysteriously, resigns. Then, we have a new pope who says he doesn’t want to be pope, who appears to be seriously conflicted and/or confused about a number of critical faith issues, and to top things off – he likes to ramble on about it in public – to non-Catholics, atheists and secular newspapers.

Please … enough already!

The time for phony reform is over. Nobody is fooling anyone. The Church is in shambles, with much of our leadership both morally and spiritually bankrupt. Yet all we need do to make things right again is what all Catholics had been doing for the 1,930-some years prior to the disaster now known as the 2nd Vatican Council.

The Church saved souls all that time. It can save souls, today. All we need do is what any failing team typically does, in order to recover from a long losing streak: get back to the fundamentals and practice, practice, practice.

God help us!

Catholic writer analyzes Pope’s interview, takes exception

Is Pope Francis a wishy-washy spineless pope? Perhaps a pawn, to be used by the liberals inside and outside the Church? Does he see what others see happening in our Church? Does it bother him?

I have a very dear Catholic friend who is freaking out because I am “having issues” with Pope Francis. It’s not that I don’t WANT to like him and think highly of him, I do. I really, really do. But… it’s just not happening for me.

I tried to give it time after the whole “Holy Week Debacle”[Muslim women foot washing etc]… he was ‘new’, he was a “different kind of pope”… he “needed time”… Well he still hasn’t grown on me, instead I have more issues now with him than I did months ago! That is not to say, I’ve tossed in the towel, I haven’t. I will continue to pray for him, my Church and myself to come to some sort of peace with “my issues with Pope Francis”.

My most recent “issues” (like oh so many other Catholics out there) are from his interview. *sigh*. Here are my thoughts on what the Pope said in his recent American Magazine interview.

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History Channel uses 21st century computer technology to reveal the face on the Shroud of Turin

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Bryan J. Brown of the ArchAngel Institute: Understanding the Black Sheepdog (John Corapi)

My initial reaction to Fr. Corapi was not positive.  While I agreed with most – if not all – of what he said, and while it was great to hear a Catholic priest saying such things, something just did not seem right to me.   His affectation – the deep booming voice – seemed synthetic, seemed more akin to a stage actor’s bad rendition of King Lear than a real, live person.  His trademark “I once was so very bad”  testimonials seemed to glorify John Corapi more than glorifying God.  His claims of great intellectual prowess — immediately  followed by disclaimers that such god-like mental powers are meaningless – struck me as disingenuous at best … and more likely narcissistic.

In short, I was not impressed by Father John Corapi.  But so many others were infatuated with the gravel-voiced preacher that I decided my bad reception must be me, my cynicism, rather than a gut reaction that I should trust.

As I watched Magisterium affirming Catholics swoon over this priest in a fashion reminiscent of  teen girls during the British Invasion of the 60’s I forged  a sociological theory about the phenomena that was Father John Corapi.

He was the byproduct of Protestant envy among the Catholic faithful.

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