News Item: : Don't Shoot the Messenger!
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Monday 06 February 2017 - 21:26:01

Raining on your parade: Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio weathers another Roman storm, while Cardinal Marc Ouellet gets himself into a bit of a tangle...

I've got to admit that I did have a bit of a chuckle on Saturday evening when I saw the news about Rome being ''carpeted'' in hundreds of posters featuring a rather curmudgeonly looking Papa Francesco above the legend, ''Hey Francis! You police congregations, priests are removed. You have decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, ignored Cardinals... but where is your mercy?''

Alright, I'll admit it: I didn't just chuckle, I had a really hearty belly laugh about it all... In fact, each time I think about those posters, I'm in danger of starting myself off all over again!

As I said to Angie during our tea on Saturday, the power of those posters was that they did not say anything that was not true.

All they really represented was a load of mirrors being held up to Francis to say, ''Dear Francis, this is you. This is what you really look like to all of us out here''.

Later on Saturday evening, I did reflect that it was sad that things have come to the point where we have all begun to think it is fair game to set up such posters about a reigning pontiff.

But, then again, this is what happens when all legitimate avenues of communication have been closed off.

Many Catholics feel simply desparate to see the Faith being attacked, the Holy Eucharist being desecrated and the unity of the Church being sundered as a result of Francis' actions and words.

After almost four years, they are just sick and tired of having to endure almost daily spiritual abuse from Francis.

They can simply take no more of all the pious chatter about ''dialogue'' when so many faithful petitions, requests for clarification and even official Dubia have been ignored.

That is why - though as Rorate Caeli announced it was the first time something like this had happened in Rome since the fall of the Papal States - it seemed like such an overreaction when the Roman authorities firmly announced that they were hunting down the culprits.

And that is why so many faithful Catholics are just gobsmacked tonight to hear that Cardinal Marc Ouellet has described the posters as ''a work of the devil, who wants to divide us''.

Please, Eminence, why are you so quick to give the devil the credit for this bit of a lighthearted prank, nay, this cry of the heart, when you are silent about the diabolical disunity being caused by Francis' manipulations of Synods '14 and '15, the apocalyptic Amoris-gate saga, the heretical and sacrilegious actions of the Bishops of Buenos Aires, Malta, Gozo and Germany, the dreadful breaking of international law in the case of the Knights of Malta, or the promotion of the Culture of Death within the hallowed walls of the Vatican?

Yes, it may be true to observe that, in normal times, it would be preferable for Catholics to use more appropriate methods to communicate in the life of the Church.

Certainly, that is their right and duty under Canon 212 of Canon Law.

But, as you well know, they have tried all that and been left out in the cold, even as Francis cuddles up to anti-Christian globalists and pro-abortionists.

By joining in the actual demonization of orthodox Catholics - as has been done by Francis at least twice, and also by his sock-puppet-using mouthpiece Antonio Spadaro S.J. - Cardinal Ouellet has merely furthered their practice of shooting the messenger.   

Whilst this poster might not be pretty to look at, and it might seem sadly disrespectful of the Papal office, there is absolutely nothing in it that is not true.

Like I said above, it is simply a mirror that has been held up for Francis and for all the world to see.

As such, it is a powerful vehicle of truth.

It must be said that, given the good he achieved in the days of former pontiffs, Cardinal Ouellet's reaction is very disheartening.

In light of his silence over the breakdown of unity and promotion of sacrilege following Amoris Laetitia, it makes it seem that he prefers to protect Francis than Our Lord Jesus Christ.

And while that is a choice no-one should have been asked to make in the first place, now that we have all been faced with it, ''We must obey God rather than man'' (Acts 5:29).

Looking at the overall situation, it is clear that these posters represented something of a ''release valve'' for many people in Rome and all around the world.

They gave orthodox Catholics a chance to express the truth in a way that could no longer be ignored.

They also gave many Catholics a chance to get rid of some of the present tension by laughing at the problem. As with all good humour, the posters were so funny because they were also so true.

The best reaction from Francis, the Hierarchy and the secular authorities in Rome, would have been to laugh this one off and put it down to experience. They could have exercised some of that well-publicised humility of theirs and listened to the message being conveyed, rather than getting so uptight that they ended up shooting the messenger.

Alas, Cardinal Ouellet's response has come over as all one-sided and heavy handed. And he is one of those we all considered to be ''one of the good guys''...

Let us conclude with those words from Sacred Scripture: ''For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was'' (St. James 1:23-24).

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1547 )