A long range mike picked up the Pope saying just before they left the Vatican. "After the Motu Proprio just take me somewhere far away preferably without newspapers before the new document from the CDF hits the streets."
What a week though is it for the press considering all of the opportunities they have lately been provided to good things wrong. "Vatican reaffirms Catholic doctrine" will be the one headline we will not be seeing. In fact after reading the coverage I was surprised that my computer still worked considering that the Pope has sent us all back in time to the Dark Ages.
It is a good thing though for the CDF to make some clarifications that unfortunately needed to be made. Reading through it I see nothing that changes the understanding that I already had. The problems it seems that progressive theologians and radical traditionalists both tried to make the phrase subsist in the Catholic Church something it is not. One side that it didn’t mean enough and the other that it means too much.
I liked the phrasing of of one response that can pretty much could be used as stock answer for all of Vatican II. The Second Vatican Council neither changed nor intended to change this doctrine, rather it developed, deepened and more fully explained it.
The MSM is of course spinning other aspects of the documents by saying that the Church is calling other "churches" defective and wounded and playing it up the Vatican as arrogant and looking for a fight. Again the document only reiterates the teaching of Vatican II where the Catholic Church call other ecclesial bodies churches where they have apostolic succession and those that don’t have this are ecclesial communities.
I once did a parody about a secret Vatican congregation called the "Congregation for Pissing Off Church Pundit." I am glad to see Cardinal Levada has joined their ranks.
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And Cardinal Hummes, too, has been saying some sound things since Pope Benedict called him from Rio to become Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy.
Perhaps the cure for spineless bishops, under this pontificate, is high office in the Curia….
Cacciaguida,
I have thought the same thing. There are a lot of good bishops that are theologically sound, but just seem very weak handling actual problems within their diocese.
my favorite headline so far is from the australian ABC: “Vatican hits ‘wounded’ Christian churches.”
Goodness!
I read your CPOCP parody, Jeff-perfect!
It’s the scary chancery rats, terrorizing the poor bishops by day and performing secret spinectomies in their hidden surgical theaters.
Hey, there’s an idea for you, Jeff! Do a parody of that Lovecraft story about the rats in the walls, except make it “The Chancery Rats in the Walls”! You can hear the sound of them whispering stuff like “unpastoral” and “against the spirit of Vatican II”.