Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome VI: After LCWR rebuke, liberals all out of hope about pope?

hey’re all out of hope. On April 30, Car­di­nal Ger­hard Müller—and not for the first time—rebuked the Wyrd Sis­ters of the LCWR. In the weeks since, the lib­er­al media has, as oft before, lashed itself into a pitch of out­rage at their imag­i­nary folk hero, Pope Fuzzy Fran­cis. The man of their dreams, before whom their words swooned, has tak­en off the hap­py clown nose and become Pen­ny­wise. From the bite of their com­i­cal rhetoric, one might be tempt­ed to think that the scales are falling from their eyes and the truth will ful­ly dawn on them that the pope is Catholic.

But do not dream like they. Here is a reveal­ing exer­cise: Google the words “meet the new pope same as the old pope.” You will get a lot of hits; but more inter­est­ing than the num­ber of hits is the dates on the posts. They rep­re­sent the full span of Fran­cis’s papa­cy thus far:

March 18, 2013
July 1, 2013
August 2, 2013
August 15, 2013
Novem­ber 29, 2013
Jan­u­ary 31, 2014
Feb­ru­ary 1, 2014
Feb­ru­ary 22, 2014

Now, the rea­son I bring this is up is because, in spite of all the wild fan­tasies out there about how Pope Fran­cis is going to strew gar­lands at the feet of female priests, sprin­kle rain­bows on same-sex cou­ples, per­mit six mar­riages per Catholic, and declare abor­tion the eighth sacra­ment, some­how the lib­er­al media needs to keep telling itself, over and over, to stop dream­ing. If you need to keep telling your­self, that often, that long, to stop dream­ing, it’s an open ques­tion whether you’ve real­ly wok­en up, or will soon.

IT’S EASY TO SELF-DECEIVE

Con­sid­er this, that it was more than a full year ago that Pope Fran­cis first affirmed the judg­ment of the CDF against the LCWR and its hereti­cal ways. At that time, Müller warned the LCWR about its duty to uphold “the teach­ings of the Church as faith­fully taught through the ages under the guid­ance of the Mag­is­terium.” That is to say, Catholic nuns should be—well, Catholic. They should not teach ideas at odds with the Church to which they had made their vows. Hys­te­ria ensued. You would have thought the pope twist­ed the head off a bun­ny rab­bit in St. Peter’s Square. At the Dai­ly Screech, Bar­bie Latza Nadeau ’plained that Pope Fran­cis was “no nicer to nuns” than the “misog­y­nis­tic” Bene­dict. He was mean; he was foul; he was dirt. [Link no longer available—SEA, 9/11/19]

But no soon­er had words like that been writ than the lib­er­als went right back to delud­ing them­selves. Indeed, Ms. Nadir held out the pos­si­bil­i­ty for such hope, even with­in her orig­i­nal arti­cle. Per­haps, she spec­u­lat­ed, Fran­cis just need­ed more time on the job. Of course he would not have killed the evil decree of the wicked Bene­dict quite so soon into his papa­cy. But give him enough time to get his feet ful­ly fixed into his plain, not-red shoes, and his fuzzy good nature would final­ly assert itself and do the right thing by the Wyrd Sis­ters.

And not just that; but, as Jamie Man­son tells it: “Some even posit­ed that Fran­cis was bare­ly aware of what Müller was doing.”

While the pope was out say­ing such nice things to win the heart of the world, the evil curia was plot­ting doom behind his back, pos­si­bly on secret orders from the wicked Bene­dict. But “once the new pope got up to speed, many com­men­ta­tors said, he would put a stop to the scruti­ny of the nuns. He’d prob­a­bly get rid of Müller alto­geth­er once he start­ed his cur­ial cleanup.”

So this was­n’t the self-delu­sion of Ms. Nadeau alone, but that of “many com­men­ta­tors.” And so, for the year since, we have had to endure a long and tire­some train of wild sto­ries about how Pope Fran­cis will soon say that every dream a lib­er­al dreams is the infal­li­ble teach­ing of God.

Now it is 2014. And not only has Pope Fran­cis not removed Müller from the CDF, but he made him a car­di­nal. Oh no! And on April 30, Müller once more issued a state­ment direct­ed at the Wyrd Sis­ters. In it, he charged them with pro­mot­ing a form of Gnos­ti­cism in their advo­ca­cy of “Con­scious Evo­lu­tion”:

The fun­da­men­tal the­ses of Con­scious Evo­lu­tion are opposed to Chris­t­ian Rev­e­la­tion and, when tak­en unre­flec­tive­ly, lead almost nec­es­sar­i­ly to fun­da­men­tal errors regard­ing the omnipo­tence of God, the Incar­na­tion of Christ, the real­i­ty of Orig­i­nal Sin, the neces­si­ty of sal­va­tion and the defin­i­tive nature of the salvif­ic action of Christ in the Paschal Mys­tery.

Lib­er­al out­rage was not far behind. The Asso­ci­at­ed Press found this ongo­ing “crack­down” of nuns to be at odds with a pope who has “empha­sized mer­cy over morals.” (Which he has­n’t; and Müller is talk­ing about doc­trine here; but nev­er mind.) The far-left Cath­News USA decried the “offi­cious” Car­di­nal Müller’s “auto­crat­ic tri­umph” and “self-right­eous­ness.” The vile rag went so far as to play a rhetor­i­cal string quar­tet:

The prob­lem the Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence of Women Reli­gious is address­ing is, of course, how to feel with the suf­fer­ing world, the beat of whose break­ing heart can­not be heard in the vault­ed tun­nels of heresy hunters.

We are meant to weep hot tears at this. You do weep, do you not, dear read­er?

Sad­hbh Wal­she of the UK Guardian was shocked—shocked, I say!—that the “lib­er­al” Fran­cis could remain silent in the face of “this lat­est knuck­le-rap­ping.” Damon Link­er of The Week, who claims to have been a “skep­tic” about Fran­cis all along, said that this “recent rep­ri­mand” has only proven to him once more that the pope’s “lib­er­al­ism” is “most­ly rhetor­i­cal” and that he is “more like a Phar­isee” than Christ. No slouch at pathos her­self, Mau­reen Dowd at the New York Times accused the pope of “bul­ly­ing nuns” and Müller of “maul­ing” them. “We are still going to be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against!” she wailed at the death of all that is good and just and true.

With all this mourn­ing going on in their midst, Aman­da Mar­cotte at Slate and Jamie Man­son at the Nation­al So-Called Catholic Reporter (here and here) warned their fel­low lib­er­als that it is “time to face facts” about Pope Fran­cis. He is as bad as the last one, yea worse, and the Church still black as pitch.

MAD AT TRUTH FOR LOVING WHAT WAS YOU

Now, there are a few things that inter­est me about all this new lib­er­al pan­ic.

The first is, one would think that the lib­er­als had no clue all this was com­ing. It was spring in Oz and then a house fell out of the sky and killed the dear sis­ter.

But here is Ms. Nadeau in the Dai­ly Screech from last year—April 16, 2013 [at the link longer avail­able]:

Since his elec­tion on March 13, Pope Fran­cis has done won­ders to renew the faith of many lost Catholics around the world and cast a pos­i­tive light on the trou­bled church. His vow that the world needs a “poor church for the poor” has been wel­comed by many dis­en­fran­chised Catholics who felt their church was out of touch with real­i­ty. … But on Mon­day, it felt like it was back to busi­ness as usu­al when word got out that Fran­cis is stand­ing by his pre­de­ces­sor Pope Bene­dict XVI’s clam­p­down on Amer­i­can nuns for their “rad­i­cal fem­i­nism.

And here is that self­same soul this year—May 11, 2014:

When Pope Fran­cis was elect­ed in March 2013, Amer­i­can nuns who belong to the Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence of Women Reli­gious (LCWR) were opti­mistic that they would enjoy a fresh start. … But the sis­ters, it seems, were dead wrong to think they might get a fair shake under Fran­cis. In what is being viewed as an even stronger clam­p­down, the Vat­i­can has essen­tial­ly warned the nuns that they must reform their orga­ni­za­tion and mend their errant ways or risk fur­ther scruti­ny by the Holy See.

At least we know they recy­cle at the Screech. It is as though Ms. Nadeau had slipped into an amne­sia and returned to a fan­ta­sy world for thir­teen months. The Church says the same thing it said a year ago and it is cause for her to gasp.

But she is not at all alone in her cold shock. Ms. Wal­she like­wise writes:

“In the ear­li­est days of his tenure, Pope Fran­cis became one of the world’s most admired reli­gious figures—due in large part to his vocal sup­port and actions on behalf of social jus­tice. So, to many Catholics, there is more than a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ment that he is turn­ing a blind eye to the Vat­i­can’s ongo­ing crack­down on Amer­i­ca’s nuns.”

The edu­ca­tion of a lib­er­al is a slow and painful thing to watch. You don’t know whether to hug the poor dear or slap him.

In spite of all this, some are still in denial. As recent­ly as Decem­ber 28, Soumya Kar­la­mangla wrote an arti­cle in the Los Ange­les Times enti­tled “Vat­i­can Observers Look for Thaw Between Pope Fran­cis, U.S. Nuns.” Writes Kar­la­mangla: “Some observers of the Roman Catholic Church are won­der­ing whether the arrival of a new pope will thaw the frosty rela­tion­ship between the nuns and the Holy See.”

Real­ly? Even after the pope had already sup­port­ed the CDF sev­en months ear­li­er? How sad, these self-told lies. Kar­la­man­gler admits as much, but quotes a “reli­gious stud­ies pro­fes­sor” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton, a poor fool named San­dra Yocum, to the effect that the pope’s sup­port of the CDF is a “puz­zle.” Thus they all scratch their heads. They are only just so bright, and no more.

Then, on May 5—near a week after Müller spoke—Yasmin Hafiz at the Huff­in­g­ton Post tried to posit a divide between the car­di­nal and the pope, as though Fran­cis is one lib­er­al day­dream away from dri­ving the poor man out of the Church for ortho­doxy:

Müller was cho­sen by Pope Fran­cis’ pre­de­ces­sor, Pope Bene­dict XVI, to lead the Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith. How­ev­er, the influ­ence of the Con­gre­ga­tion under Pope Fran­cis may be chang­ing, as the new pope report­ed­ly told South Amer­i­can priests and nuns not to wor­ry if they received let­ters from the CDF crit­i­ciz­ing their behav­ior.

Con­tor­tion­ists are fun to watch. Does Hafiz real­ly mean to sug­gest that Pope Fran­cis’s atti­tude is, Let the CDF rage on; we don’t real­ly need to be con­cerned with them, all while pro­mot­ing Müller to the Col­lege of Car­di­nals?

LES YEUX SANS VISAGE

The lib­er­als are as mud­dled about what the Church is as they are about who the pope is. If they do not know what the Church is, it should not sur­prise us to find that they will keep get­ting the pope wrong too. When the pope says, “Let us be mer­ci­ful,” lib­er­als hear, “Let us deny sin and say truth is what you may please.” When the pope then says, “Let us be faith­ful to Church teach­ing,” they do not know what to think and twist their minds into a bent branch.

Here are some few cas­es of this:

• In the Nation­al So-Called Catholic Reporter, Ms. Man­son laments that Fran­cis has “reassert­ed John Paul II’s ban on the ordi­na­tion of women.

But it is not “John Paul II’s ban.” He did not make this up in order to dash your hopes and dreams. The Church does not wave its wand and change women into priests. It nev­er has; that is not the plan of God for the Church. It is so from the begin­ning. It is not as though there used to be such a fan­tas­ti­cal mon­ster as a female priest, until John Paul II came along and turned Nar­nia back to win­ter. The Church no more has women priests than it has male nuns or round squares. Fran­cis has no more pow­er to come along and change that than even the most crazed lib­er­al can change east into west or tax­es into wealth.

• In the New York Times, Ms. Dowd prais­es the Wyrd Sis­ters as a holy brood “inspired by Vat­i­can II.” But Ms. Dowd has giv­en not one wisp of proof that she has read Vat­i­can II in the first place. She uses the Coun­cil’s name as though it were a tal­is­man to give whim flesh. But here is what Lumen Gen­tium says about con­se­crat­ed reli­gious:

The mem­bers of these insti­tutes, in ful­fill­ing their oblig­a­tion to the Church due to their par­tic­u­lar form of life, ought to show rev­er­ence and obe­di­ence to bish­ops accord­ing to the sacred canons. The bish­ops are owed this respect because of their pas­toral author­i­ty in their own church­es and because of the need of uni­ty and har­mo­ny in the apos­to­late.

It is for that very reason—disobedience to the Mag­is­teri­um of the Church and its teaching—that the CDF has had to rebuke the Wyrd Sis­ters. It is Müller—not Ms. Dowd, and cer­tain­ly not the Wyrd Sisters—who is try­ing to be faith­ful to the Coun­cil.

• Ms. Dowd, and not her alone, claims that the LCWR is being dis­ci­plined for car­ing for the sick and the poor. The only prob­lem with that is, it is a lie. In none of the state­ments issued by the CDF— not one—has any such thing ever been said. In fact, the CDF has gone to great lengths to praise the LCWR for its work with the poor. But what it has said is that the Church must care for the poor with­in the con­text of faith­ful­ness to its teach­ing. The two are not at odds with each oth­er; and even a pass­ing glance at the life’s work of Moth­er Tere­sa would indi­cate that. If Ms. Dowd wants to praise nuns, let her praise Moth­er Tere­sa. I await that col­umn.
• Time and again, the lib­er­al media refer to a “crack­down” on “Amer­i­can nuns”; as though the LCWR and “Amer­i­can nuns” were the same. But the LCWR no more speaks for the major­i­ty of “Amer­i­can nuns” than any oth­er so-called advo­ca­cy group speaks for the poor souls they pre­tend to advo­cate for. To speak of the LCWR as though it were “Amer­i­can nuns” being “bul­lied” is what is tru­ly dis­re­spect­ful to women who devote their lives to the Church and remain faith­ful to what it teach­es.

They keep get­ting the Church wrong; and some of us imag­ine that one day, soon­er or lat­er, they will get the pope right? But no.

The dif­fi­cul­ty with lib­er­al­ism is that it imag­ines it can invent its own truth. To be in such a state of mind is, by def­i­n­i­tion, to remain unper­suad­ed by facts. At times facts will knock you into a wall or tum­ble you upon a stone. You will shake your fist at it, and then when the shock abates, return to your dream. After two thou­sand years, lib­er­als do not get the Church; after fifty years, they do not get Vat­i­can II; and after one year, they cer­tain­ly are not going to get the pope. Nor will they. Ever.

Well, indi­vid­u­als can be con­vert­ed; but lib­er­al­ism will not. As long as there are lib­er­als, whether or no their num­bers and mem­bers change, there will be peo­ple who tell them­selves lies. There will always be “the Spir­it of Vat­i­can II”; and there will always be “the Spir­it of Fran­cis I.” The gates of Hell do not pre­vail, but nei­ther do they go away.

Lib­er­als may remain in their fan­ta­sy world about us, but that does not mean we can enter­tain fan­tasies about them.

They’re not out of hope.