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Fr. Ray Blake - a good parish priest whose writings often provide encouragement and food for thought for Catholics in these troubled times.
Courage!
The good Fr. Ray Blake has written a courageous piece regarding the intimidation being experienced by some of the 45 scholars, theologians and pastors, who had signed up to the Letter requesting clarifications on Amoris Laetitia.
As we have already noted this week, Fr. John Hunwicke has made public the fact that some of these faithful people are experiencing ''intimidation and cruel pressure'' to rescind their support for the Letter.
Having endured and witnessed so much at the hands of dissenting modernists at Ushaw Seminary in the 90's, during our ''marriage preparation'' course in 2002, in so-called ''social-justice'' work, and against our efforts here at Torch of The Faith, I can well believe the full gravity of Fr. Hunwicke's claims.
Pointing out that this kind of bullying is not good for Christ's Church, Fr. Blake's article rightly situates this bullying within the wider context of Catholics being told to ''hold their tongues'' in relation to ad orientem worship, the letter of the 13 Cardinals during the Synod, Cardinal Baldisseri's interception of the 10 Cardinals' book Remaining in the Truth of Christ, and the pressure put on the 500 priests who signed a letter supporting the Church's traditional teachings on marriage.
Some international readers might find it helpful to know that the phrase ''hold their tongues'' has a particular resonance here in England. That is because Cardinal Nichols once infamously suggested, in a mainstream media interview, that those Catholics who had complained about active homosexuals receiving Holy Communion at the Soho ''Gay Masses'' should ''learn to hold their tongues.''
In the concluding paragraph to his candid article, Fr. Blake states: ''Intimidation can work on several levels from the Mafia boss who sends messages saying, ''I know where you live'', to someone threatening to deprive someone of their living or home, all too easy in the Church. It is especially worrying when the downright heretical are given free range and those who defend what has always, and everywhere and at all times been held as being the Catholic faith are treated with violence. This is not mercy, this is violence in action, so very much at odds with the doctrine of our Holy Father.''
Please Give Thanks and Pray for Fr. Blake
In the present ecclesiastical climate, Fr. Blake deserves the support and the prayers of the faithful for his courage and forthrightness. It is clear that he has the well-being of the Church at heart.
Some Reflections on ''Holding Your Tongues''
Pope Francis and the disgraced Cardinal Godfried Danneels during Synod '15 - a modernistic prelate handpicked by Pope Francis to attend the Synod.
Perhaps it is this desire to defend the Church which has led Fr. Blake, like Fr. Hunwicke in his own gallant article on this troubling matter, to attempt to distance the issue of bullying from the person and intentions of Pope Francis.
As well as being clear from the words of his concluding sentence, this attempt comes through very strongly in Fr. Blake's firm response to a comment that had been made by a lady called Ana Milan.
It appears clear from comments that Ana Milan has left on other sites in recent months that she is both a faithful and spirited defender of the One True Faith. In times like this, we could do with a few more like her.
At Fr. Blake's site, Ana suggests: ''As you say, this is violence in action, but I doubt that those responsible would attempt it without the knowledge and consent of Pope Francis. Someone knows who it is but again silence enables them to continue in their wickedness.''
To this comment, Fr. Blake firmly replies: ''Ana, I think many lieutenants go beyond what their boss says, I doubt that there is evidence to suggest that HH supports such violent abusive behaviour, on the contrary everything he says would repudiate it.''
Further on, in block capitals, Fr. Blake concludes: ''PLEASE, NO ATTACKS ON HIS HOLINESS I HAVEN'T TIME TO DELETE THEM.''
Clearly, like so many orthodox priests these days, Fr. Blake is in a very difficult position. As I have already said above, he deserves credit, support and prayers for his defence of the Faith and of the faithful.
That Being Said
That being said, I do wonder whether such a firm approach tends to put the ''smack down'' on the laity who, still feeling giddy from so many of the Church-shaking words and actions of Pope Francis, are doing what they can to both keep the Faith and defend it from such an unprecedented crisis.
It can leave the faithful feeling stung and demotivated to receive a reply like that. They can feel that they are being perceived as extremists, when in fact it is those launching a co-ordinated attack on faith and morals who are the real extremists.
So often, we have seen lay people standing up for persecuted clergy, only to find themselves hoisted from their own petard when such men begin to take the side of their own oppressors against them. It has happened to us on occasion. It seems to be a peculiar and disorienting phenomenon in these times when the enemy of souls is causing so much widespread division and disunity. The result of such actions is to make lay people more circumspect in standing up for them in the future. And so, the problem increases and spreads.
Clearly, Fr. Blake's intentions should not be included in this category. He is doing his best not to add to any divisions by his efforts to distance Pope Francis from the mysterious ''bullies'' alluded to by both him and Fr. Hunwicke.
Such an attempt can be gathered by his suggestion that everything Pope Francis says would ''repudiate'' such violent and abusive behaviour.
The General or the Lieutenants?
I wonder though, is that really the case with ''everything'' that Pope Francis says? If so, what are we to make of his consistent and demoralizing complaints about ''fundamentalist Catholics''?
Then again, we need not look so far; for Fr. Blake himself acknowledges the issue of the silencing of the 13 cardinals in his own gathering of examples of people who have been bullied into holding their tongues.
Yet, this widely reported example of people being bullied into silence did not come from any of Pope Francis' lieutenants, but from Pope Francis himself. And strongly too.
Perhaps without realizing it, Fr. Blake also ends up telling the faithful to hold their tongues too.
Unite and Advance
In our own reflections on the persecution of ''The 45'' earlier this week, we reflected: ''Rather than being forced into disunity and retreat, orthodox Catholics need to do what liberals have managed for decades: unite and advance! This is the only way to preserve the Church from people who, let's say it as it is, don't even hold remotely Catholic beliefs.''
Conclusion
Pope Francis and/or his appointed men facilitated the manipulations surrounding the press releases, working documents, attendee lists and unorthodox content of much in Synods '14 and '15.
Pope Francis issued Amoris Laetitia with all of its putatively heretical ambiguities and chose Cardinals Baldisseri and Schoenborn to release it to the general public.
In so doing, Pope Francis ignored the very public requests of the 879,451 faithful in the Filial Appeal and the 500 priests in the Synod Letter; as well as the much more private requests of the 13 Cardinals at the Synod. More recently, the 45 scholars, theologians and pastors have found themselves similarly ignored.
It was Pope Francis who enabled the Kasper-proposal, appointed Baldiserri to run the Synods and created the overall atmosphere in the Church which has thus enabled ''the downright heretical to have free range''; whilst ''those who defend what has always, and everywhere and at all times been held as being the Catholic faith'' now find themselves being ''treated with violence.''
And it was Pope Francis who either put the lieutenants who are carrying out this present ''violence'' into their positions of power; or at the very least it is Pope Francis who is not preventing them from carrying out this ''violence'' now that it is out in the open for all to hear about.
If all of this were not so, we would not even be having this conversation...    Â
