Saturday 2 December 2017

An unacceptable representative of patrimony?

Fr Hunwicke (or JH, if we adopt his own manner of referring to those in high ecclesial office) makes great play of the Anglican patrimony that has been brought into the Catholic fold in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

In richly Anglican fashion, he represents Pope Francis as the leader of a "party" in the Church:
The difference in our present situation is that one of these "schools" or parties - the Bergoglianist - is headed by the Roman Pontiff himself (or else by individuals who have worked themselves into the position of being able to manipulate the papal office). This is confusing; Christifideles are not accustomed to having to make the distinction between what the Pope does as the head of a party; and what he does by virtue of his Petrine Ministry. But we are left with no alternative except to work within this confusing situation. The pope is the boss, and this, clearly, is how he wants things.
JH then goes on to argue that unpopular (to some) passages of Amoris Laetitia (clearly an exercise by Pope Francis of his office as successor of St Peter whatever JH and other commentators might say about it not being a magisterial document) can be seen as the actions of the leader of a "party" in the Church rather than an exercise of office, and so be considered non-binding.

And now JH has indulged in what can only be described as character assassination of Pope Francis:
Would you like a careful explanation of PF's skills in playing people off against each other, in making use of a person and then discarding him, in ruthlessly humiliating or disposing of people whose aptitude for sycophancy he finds insufficiently crafted? It's all here....
It has, I think, become so clear as now to be uncontroversial that what you get in PF is not what it says on the tin. He is not a kindly humble avuncular figure with a winning smile and a passion for cripples and babies, who spends his days and nights thinking about the poor. He is a hard and determined politician with a vindictive temper and an appetite for power and a disinclination to let anybody or anything stand in his way. .....
Persistent discrediting of the Successor of St Peter is simply not Catholic. And presenting it under the guise of an Anglican Catholic patrimony, and, so ironically, in the language of "party" in the Church familiar to the Church of England, does not make it any more acceptable:
And the Anglican Catholic Patrimony has been transplanted, surely, for the good of all Catholic Christians. Papa Ratzinger replanted us within Christ's Catholic Church Militant here in Earth so that we can share and proclaim our experience. So that we can tell our fellow Catholics: "If you go down that path, we can explain to you here and now exactly where you will end up. We can show you the map. We have already visited the future ... the future to which Bergoglianism beckons the Catholic Church ... and, believe us, it does not work."
It is doubtful that JH should be seen as an authentic representative of Anglican patrimony for the wider Catholic Church.

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