The Obamazation of Pope Francis V

Saw this on facebook 

A week before Christmas, Pope Francis announced his reorganization of several Vatican dicasteries and did not re-appoint Cardinal Raymond Burke to either the Congregation for Bishops or the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.  This leaves His Eminence with membership on only one Vatican Congregation, that of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.  He remains, of course, head of the Apostolic Signatura which is a post which is mostly honorary and has little real power.  While on the Congregation for Bishops, however, Burke had immense influence over the appointment of new bishops and thus the leadership of the Church in the United States.  The replacement of Cardinal Burke by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington DC caused an outcry by wing-nuts of the Catholic right because Cardinals Burke and Wuerl have taken very different stances on the issue of administering Holy Communion to public figures whose political stances do not reinforce the Church’s teaching on abortion, contraception, and same-sex relationships.  While Cardinal Wuerl supports the Church’s traditional teaching he has been very outspoken in maintaining that the Eucharist should not be “used as a weapon” politically.  Cardinal Burke, on the other hand, has advocated a policy of withholding Holy Communion to politicians who do not support Church doctrine.  The wrath of the right came down on Pope Francis in the weeks after dropping Burke from the post where he could advance the cause of prelates who think as he does.  Here are some of the comments that appeared on various Catholic websites and blogs.

What in God's Holy Name are Catholics supposed to think about this pope????? 

This could be the worst news we have heard since the election of Pope Francis. Cardinal Burke is the one giant in the American group of Cardinals, head and shoulders above the others in truly living the Word. His recent interview with Raymond Arroyo could not help but leave one in awe with regard to his grasp of Christ's teaching and the Church's mission today. I shall be on my knees in prayer shortly to ask the Holy Spirit's protection and graces for him. .

Well, as a faithful Catholic who has fought the culture of death and modernity WITHIN the Church I can tell you that this papacy has demoralized and confused me for months. I am glad that you are blessed by it, I truly am. But seeing more and more questionable appointments and confusing documents has worn me down. That is just where I am right now

Francis cannot change Church teaching but he can make them look meaningless.

Well, I'm not up on Catholic politics but it seems that a courageous conservative just got squashed and ignored. And here I was saying that the Church should clean house of the Marxists and whatnot. What happens? The just the opposite! This is not a good sign. The Church needs a fighter against the culture of Death. I heard Rush Limbaugh describe the Pope Francis as a Marxist. I'm scared to research it -- there might be something to it.

Why are we so dead-certain that Francis is pro-life?

When the pope is being embraced by a secular humanist mainstream media, that pope may want to reconsider what he's doing and what he's saying.

the “smoke of satan" has invaded the Church........especially in the Vatican

He's  (Thomas Peters)  authored a piece that conveys a few things to me.

1. Urban legends about what inspires faithful Catholics to speak the truth - even when our Holy Father is the recipient of the message - live on.

2. There is still a death grip on clericalism.

The Holy Father informed us of his trajectory through his apostolic exhortation, followed by the actions of replacing Cardinal Burke with Cardinal Wuerl to advise him on what priests in the United States have the spiritual substance and attributes to be a bishop.

Now, numerous faithful Catholics who in charity had been giving Pope Francis' imprudent statements the benefit of the doubt, have publicly calibrated what Cdl. Wuerl's appointment will mean on the ground relative to the catechesis of tools for salvation.

Because it doesn't paint a pretty picture, evangelists who take their role seriously need and want to be most cautious about how to proceed in the public square.

Some of the comments and reactions to my post earlier this week on Pope Francis’s decision not to renew Cardinal Burke’s membership on the Congregation for Bishops revealed a disturbing trend to me, namely, the extent to which many Catholics have adopted an apprehensive attitude about the current pontiff.

First of all, I think we're beyond the apprehension stage. We were apprehensive during the eight months of commentary undermining and insulting the 2000 years of the Deposit of Faith and those who love and evangelize It.

Though Pope Francis has issued numerous clarifications, he then went ahead and contradicted said clarifications with an apostolic exhortation which ratified the trajectory of his original statements.

Pope Francis selected a spineless bishop who operates a chancery that persecutes faithful priests and teaches Church laws can or should be ignored and disobeyed at our own will.

Whether he intended to or he didn't, Pope Francis has repeatedly conveyed that the laws and teachings of the Church are small-minded rules of sourpusses and under his watch the the road to salvation will be the abandonment of teaching right judgment and distinctions between sin and virtue for the new church of social service and being giddy.

 Each one of us who have suffered the ill effects of this counterfeit church knows what this means for the abilities of priests to teach the substance in the Catechism, and teach obedience to the Catechism and Church law in our schools, parishes and in our own homes. And, we know what it means for the salvation of the masses of uncatechized.

 We are acutely aware that many of Christ's elect who have suffered through this undisciplined and counterfeit church have lost touch with that immutable oath.

We have painfully watched the Pope undermine our teachings and sacred traditions which offer the highest unblemished gifts, surrender and respect to Christ and have prayerfully and thoughtfully navigated these waters so as not to scandalize those suffering from despair.

 The more I read about Pope Francis, the more I am convinced that the soul of this papacy is up for grabs.

I am also firmly convicted that it is a duty of our Baptism to inform our loving and beloved Holy Father that we will not subject ourselves or our children to the false church within for a nanosecond longer. Most of us have fled and already found refuge and he is making those refuges fodder for the apostates who have control of power within our Chanceries because of weak bishops like Cardinal Wuerl.

Then again, in a document of this length one would also expect to find a good deal of what has made this Pope so beloved by the worldwide mass media: radical-sounding bombshells about how wrong the Church is and how much Francis must do to make it right, in all humility. That too is there—in spades...

Francis’s “dream Church” involves nothing less than a deconstruction of the papacy in favor of a synodal model governed—God help us!—by the national bishops’ conferences:

These are interesting comments because they show that for the right wing, as for the left, the Pope is no longer the ultimate arbiter of the Catholic Faith.  No Catholic would have dared uttered this level of criticism—or dissent—in the days of Pius XII.  But the world has changed and no authority is above questioning.  That is a positive thing.  Just because the Pope is infallible doesn’t mean that he can’t be wrong.  What is dangerous about it is that it shows for the right wing, as for the left, the individual holds the “right” to determine what is authentic to our Catholic faith.  The true faith is what I believe and this attitude undermines the very nature of the Church, or at least the Catholic Church, where orthodoxy is determined by the harmonious alignment of magisterial teaching, theological scholarship, and the consensus fidelium.  Pope Francis eats in the cafeteria at the Casa Santa Marta—a good protection for his safety.  Hard to tamper with the food when you don’t know what pork chop he will pick.  But it seems that these days all Catholics dine in the cafeteria and the day of a menu fixe is on the ash heap of maniples and mantellones.  To bad, I always wanted to be a prelate di mantellone.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church XLVIII

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury 

Well, back to our story of the Church of England for a few episodes and then I want to look at all the fuss that the Holy Father’s interviews are creating.  Boy, are those crazy neo-trads angry with the Pope.  They feel betrayed for all their “loyalty” now we have a Pope that sees things from a very different perspective than their tired old locked-in Jansenism.    I, for one, am enjoying their frustration.  It is always good seeing a shoe go on the other foot.  And speaking of shoes going on the other foot, Judie Brown—the American Life League Maven—is getting more and more frustrated as her efforts to undermine Catholic Relief Services goes nowhere.  You might remember that Ms. Brown turned on Catholic Relief Services when CRS dropped its multi-million dollar contract with the Brown family printing business.  Judie started bad-mouthing CRS in retaliation, alleging that the agency isn’t following Catholic teaching in its distribution of medical services in developing countries, but her claims can’t be supported and despite a flurry of letters to the American Bishops she isn’t getting any traction.  CRS not only has the support of the Bishops, but of the Holy See—they are the American branch of Caritas Internationalis, the Holy See’s program of Aid to developing nations.  Ol’ Judie burned too many bridges over the years with various bishops and now nobody wants to answer her frantic calls.  Of course hitching her campaign to Michael Voris’ horse wasn’t helpful as the Church is backing off from him as well because of his outlandish claims about what is and isn’t authentic Catholicism.  So history is being made even as we look back centuries into schisms and heresies of the past.  And now on to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

We have looked at some of the key players in the separation of the English Church from the Roman Communion.  We have seen Henry VIII, of course, and his queen, Katherine of Aragon.  We have looked at wife and queen 2, Anne Boleyn.  And there has been Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More.  Now let’s look at Henry’s compliant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.  Cranmer was born in Nottinghamshire in 1489 to a small farmer, not a member of the aristocracy, much less the nobility.  His older brother inherited the family farm and so Thomas had to make his way in the world.  After initial studies in a village school he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, at age 14.  By 22 he had his bachelor’s degree and by 25 his master’s.  He was elected a fellow of the College but abandoning the path towards priesthood he married and consequently lost his position in the College. (At that time it was expected that the residential fellows of a College would be clerics.)  When he was widowed after only a few years of marriage, he applied for ordination and was also named a University Preacher—a sign of the high regard in which he was held.  By age 37 he had attained the doctorate in theology. 

By the 1520’s Luther’s ideas had spread to various European Universities and Cambridge had become a hothouse of reformed ideals.  Cranmer was a habitué of the White Horse Tavern where Lutheranism was embraced with impunity.  The White Horse Tavern was often called “Little Germany” for its connection with Lutheranism and its clients were a virtual Who’s Who of the Anglican Reformation: Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, Robert Barnes, John Bale, William Tyndale, Nicholas Shaxton and even Stephen Gardiner whose career would go in quite a different direction after several convoluted turns.   

Cranmer came to Wolsey’s attention and shortly before Wolsey’s fall entered the King’s diplomatic service in a minor role.  His friendship with Stephen Gardiner, formed at the White Horse tavern, let to Cranmer suggesting to Gardiner that Henry, rather than appealing for a Roman annulment, should canvas the theological faculties of Europe’s universities for their opinion on whether or not the marriage of Henry and Katherine was valid.  Henry, at this point having great difficulties with the proceedings in Rome, liked the idea—as did the King’s Chancellor, Thomas More.  Cranmer was put on the team to solicit the opinions.  The Universities, of course, overwhelmingly gave their opinions in the King’s favor.  It was in this work that Cranmer first started a correspondence with Simon Gyranaeus, a disciple of the Swiss reformer, Martin Bucer.  Later that summer, Henry sent Cranmer as ambassador to the court of Charles V, the nephew of Katherine of Aragon.  It was a delicate and difficult position, but being in Germany it afforded Cranmer with direct contact with the Lutheran reformers among whom was Andreas Osiander.  Despite his priestly commitment to celibacy, Cranmer secretly married Osiander’s niece.  There was a formal marriage but it had to be kept secret as Henry, though he was indifferent to any man’s chastity, insisted on celibacy for the clergy.

On October 1, 1532 Henry appointed Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury.  Cranmer was in Italy with the Imperial Court at the time and was summoned home.  The break with Rome was not yet formalized and Henry followed all the correct procedures.  The monks of Christchurch Cathedral at Canterbury duly “elected” Cranmer; the King petitioned Pope Clement for all the proper bulls authorizing the consecration.  On March 30^th 1533 Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop in St. Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster by the John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter; and Henry Standish OFM, Bishop of St Asaph in Wales.  Ironically all three bishops were conservatives and would die within the Roman Communion.

Cranmer’s first task was to find a solution to the royal mess in which Henry found himself.   At the time of Cranmer’s consecration, Henry had two wives—he had secretly married Anne (who was pregnant) about eight weeks before—but had not yet been annulled of Katherine. On April 7^th Henry had Parliament pass the Act in Restraint of Appeals which declared that all legal actions were to be decided in England without appeal to foreign power.  This meant that the annulment was to be heard in England and by an English court, not in Rome by a papal one.  Five days later Cranmer was authorized by Parliament to hear the case.  He convened a court at Dunstable for May 10.  Katherine refused to appear in court, either in person or by proxy as that would acknowledge its legitimacy.  On May 23^rd   the decision was announced in Henry’s favor and on May 28^th Cranmer declared the January wedding of Henry and Anne to have been a valid marriage.  Three days later, June 1, Archbishop Cranmer crowned Anne as Queen in Westminster Abbey.  The crowds massing outside the Abbey booed Anne and pelted the procession with garbage. 

Anne had used her position with Henry to nominate Thomas Cranmer to be Archbishop.  It is difficult to know precisely what connections existed between Cranmer and the Boleyn family but they were confident that he would take the necessary steps in favor of securing her position.  Anne Boleyn and her family were religious conservatives and while they were obviously not attached to the papacy were not known to be in favor of Lutheran ideas.  Anne’s connections in France with Marguerite of Navarre, sister of Louis XII, disposed her to religious reform but more in the line of Erasmus than of Luther; that is to say an institutional and scholarly reform more than doctrinal upheaval or the sort of religious revolution proposed by the more radical reformers.  In fact in the few years left to Anne little would change—the Mass would be in Latin, priests would be forbidden to marry (Henry either not knowing about or choosing to ignore Mrs. Cranmer), monks and nuns would continue to live and pray in their abbeys.  There would be statues in the churches and Holy Communion would be given in only one kind.  Masses would be offered for the dead, confessions would be heard, and those with Lutheran ideas—excepting the Archbishop of course—would be burned at the stake.  Cranmer himself however would continue to evolve theologically from Lutheran to Calvinist to Zwinglian in his ideas, ever more radical against the day when he could introduce true Protestantism into the ancient English Church.  More on that in the future.  

They're Eating Their Own Young

Michael Voris--heading for conflict with the Church?

Yesterday I mentioned the alliance between American Life League’s Judie Brown and Michael Voris of Church Militant TV.  About a week ago Voris launched an incredibly foolhardy attack not only against CRS and CCHD but on his fellow Catholic Traditionalist Fora such as Al Kresta, EWTN, and Catholic Answers.  He then went on to attack the hierarchy in general and Archbishop Charles Chaput in particular in what will prove to be a suicidal assault. 
He attacks Kresta, Raymond Arroyo of EWTN, Karl Keating of Catholic Answers and others for their “enormous salaries” (generally in the neighborhood of $100,000 annual) which he contrasts to his own, $40,000 take home.  Now I am no fan of any of the above, but my objections are not about their salaries but rather the slant they often place on Church teaching.  Michael Voris cleverly does not distinguish between salary—his being $40,000.00—and income.  Many who are public personalities, as Voris has fashioned himself into, make more in speakers’ fees, royalties, and gifts from admirers than they are paid in salary.  A speaker like Voris can often command amounts up to $10,000 for a single talk.  Mr. Voris has had a number of foreign speaking tours in addition to the American circuit and now is advertising that one can take a luxury cruise with him.  And then there is the question of perks.  It is not uncommon for executives—and Voris is an executive of “Church Militant TV”—to be provided with housing, automobile, travel etc. above and beyond their salary.  In fact, there can also be the matter of bonuses.   I don’t begrudge Mr. Voris his $40,000 and I don’t begrudge him any additional income that floats his way. And speaking of floating, I sincerely hope he enjoys his cruise. He works hard—by all accounts 18 hours a day—and as the scripture says: you shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.  I don’t begrudge Kresta, Keating, or Arroyo their income either.  That is not my point.  My point is that Michael Voris is an unreliable source for authentic Catholic teaching.  Some of his ideas—such as the United States should abandon its Constitution and become a Catholic Monarchy where only Catholics can have political voice—are just off the wall.  Many of his other ideas are in direct contradiction to the Teachings of the Church at the Second Vatican Council.   And some of them are contrary to Papal teaching as well.  His Bachelor’s in Sacred Theology granted by the Angelicum (The Dominican University in Rome) sounds impressive until you realize that even the average parish priest has a degree beyond the STB, and that while the degree in question was granted by the Angelicum it was earned at an American campus and not the famed Roman one atop the Quiranale (actually on one of the lesser peaks of the hill, somewhat down the road from the presidential palace)  a fact that Mr. Voris does not advertise. 
So what is his point in going after—not the liberals this time—but his “competition” among the neo-traditionalists?  The market is only so big and with the papacy of Francis it is shrinking as it is clear that Francis himself is not sympathetic to the neo-trad line.  When your potential revenue pool shrinks, you have to eliminate the competition.  The only danger he faces is that while Kresta and EWTN and the others work with the hierarchy—even when they disagree with it—Mr. Voris has been staking out independent territory undermining the legitimate leadership of the Church in his attacks on individual bishops as well as the work of the Bishops’ Conference.  This is a dangerous road to follow as it leads to open conflict with the hierarchy and you don’t win that war.  Or at least you don’t win that war and stay Catholic. Archbishop Chaput and other targets of Voris’ disinformation campaigns won’t hesitate to bring in the big guns from Rome and there will be a showdown in the O.K. Corral.  Good Luck, Michael.  Cruise while you can. 

Liars, Damn Liars, and Ms. Judie Brown

Michael Voris--Matin Luther began with good

intentions too but did not know when to back

down

I had mentioned in an earlier posting (August 25) that Judie Brown and the American Life League have launched their attacks on Catholic Relief Services because CRS withdrew from their multi-million dollar business arrangement with AKA printing, a company owned and operated by Paul Brown, husband of ALL’s Judie Brown.  Of late Ms. Brown has been trying to re-spin the story by re-arranging the sequence of events and claiming that CRS’s dropping AKA as their printing and mailing service was in retaliation for ALL’s attacks on CRS’s policies which allegedly—according to Ms Brown—involve the distribution of condoms and abortificients in the third world countries where CRS provides economic aid.  This spin, like the charges themselves, is nothing less than a deliberate falsehood.  The Browns are steamed that their biggest client—Catholic Relief Services—has pulled its business and they are determined to discredit it any way.  Catholic Relief Services, part of the Church’s relief network known as Caritas International, continues to enjoy unqualified support not only from the American Bishops but from the Holy See. 
Most seriously Ms. Brown’s war on CRS will lead her into conflict with the Holy See in a way that will not be unlike Martin Luther’s conflict about which we have recently posted.  She—and her chief publicist, Michael Voris—see themselves as the voice of truth in opposition to the designated hierarchy and they are on a collision course with the American Bishops.  Now, as you can probably tell from my various postings, I am no admirer of most of our bishops.  I believe that over the last thirty some years there has been a decline in the intellectual and spiritual quality of the men the Holy See has chosen to shepherd the Church in the United States.  I am not speaking univocally—there are and have been some outstanding men.  I would mention among others Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Cardinal William Keeler, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Bishop William Curlin (retired Bishop of Charlotte), Robert Morneau (former auxiliary of Green Bay),  John Flesy (auxiliary of Newark).  There are others.  Not enough.  And on the other hand you have such shining examples of intellectual shallowness and spiritual ineptitude as Cardinal Bernard Law, Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Bishops Michael Sheridan, Robert Morlino, Robert Finn and a not-inconsiderable list of mitered midgets. In between these two camps you have a vast field of mediocrity.  We deserve and we need better quality of shepherds.  Of course, many good priests refuse the miter  because it means giving up pastoral work for a job that is mostly  administration and that leave the B team (or the C, D, and F teams) ready to step in and fill the vacuum. 
The difference between Michael Voris, Judie Brown and their camp and myself is that while I am in almost despair over the poor quality of Episcopal leadership in the United States, I recognize that the Bishops are the Bishops.  I may not admire them; I may not even like them; I may take their dicta with a grain of salt or even with serious reservations.  But they are the bishops, and like it or not, whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it is bad for the pitcher.  At the end of the day you have to work with them.  Work against them and you will find yourself working against the Holy See and the final result of that is not a pretty picture.  I am not sure what, other than vengeance, motivates Judie Brown in her campaign against the Bishops and their organizations, but Michael Voris has fallen into the same error as the Montanists of the 3^rd century, the Cathers of the 13^th century, the Puritans of the 16^th century, and the Jansenists of the 17^th   century in as that Voris cannot accept the reality that the Church, at least in its visible and institutional form, is an imperfect society.  Sad as the state of the Church might be, history shows us that collectively as well as individually we all fall short of the ideal to which we strive.  That should not permit us to be content in our mediocrity—much less our sinfulness—but neither should we rage against those whom we judge to be less worthy than we perceive ourselves to be.  Of course an individual who is in touch before God with his or her own sinfulness is inclined to look with compassion on the faults of others and, while perhaps encouraging one another to strive harder, not to sit in moral judgment.  Michael Voris obviously has not reached this stage of spiritual maturity but, like the Pharisees of Jesus day, has a confidence in his own righteousness that permits him to claim moral superiority over those with whom he disagrees.  In the end he only exposes himself for his lack of intellectual and spiritual depth. 
All that, however, is somewhat beside my point.  Those who are attracted to the ideas of Michael Voris or Judie Brown or the swarm of petty bloggers who follow in their dust need be very careful of the trajectory along which they are proceeding.  I am hopeful that Pope Francis, with the reforms he is undertaking, will provide us with a better class of bishops than his immediate predecessors. I doubt, of course, that Mr. Voris or Ms. Brown and I would agree on what makes a bishop good.  But I doubt that anyone whom the current Pope appoints in this country is going to meet with the approval of the Voris faction.  Ultimately Michael Voris will have to retire from Catholic commentary or else find himself outside the Catholic Communion.  As for Ms. Brown, persistent attacks on the Bishops through CRS or other agencies of the Bishops’ Conference will lead to the Catholicity of her American Life League being discredited by those who have the power to do so, the Bishops and the Holy See. 

Liars, Damned Liars, and The American Life League

There is no Gospel that is not a Social Gospel

I am sorry for the most recent hiatus.  I was giving a retreat this past week and found myself without internet connections at the center.  I hope to have a strong week with several postings but then the whole month of September could be up in the air as I will be overseas at a series of meetings and don’t know what to expect.

I want to make some progress on the Church of England postings as we are just at the most interesting part of the of the story and how the separation came about between the Church of England and the Catholic Church in communion with the See of Rome.  But there are so many other things to comment on as well.

I see that in the blogs the complaints about the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities USA, and Catholic Relief services is heating up.  Voices of the pseudo-magisterium—Michal Voris, Judie Brown and Michael Hitcborn and their American Life League, LifeSiteNews, and dozens and dozens of minor blogs are banging the drum against the those programs by which the official magisterium of the Catholic Church in the United States conducts its outreach to the poor, the sick, and the emarginated both here at  home and around the world.  The real issue is a battle for the “soul of the Church” and the battle ground is the Church’s commitment to striving for greater justice in our society and in other societies and cultures. 

Several years ago ex-Catholic and self-appointed theological expert Glen Beck declared that “Social Justice is a perversion of the Gospel.”  It is—for many both in the Catholic Church and beyond who espouse a new Gnosticism that wants to spiritualize the teachings of Jesus so that they have no bearing on the social order.  Ignoring the entire tradition of the prophets—most notably Amos, Isaiah, and Ezekiel—they claim that God has no interest in seeing a world in which each of his children has a sufficient share in the world’s goods to live in a dignity befitting the children of God.  They speak of a religion that is about “souls” with no regard to the bodily hunger, thirst, nakedness, illness, imprisonment and homelessness of which Jesus spoke in admonishing us as to the criteria by which we would be admitted to eternal life. 

This false Christianity promoted by Voris, Brown, et al beneath the guise of an empty piety and an alleged concern for human life is closely tied to—and indeed is no more than a front for—the most abject right-wing politics that seeks to turn our society into a revival of the ancien regime in which a small wealthy minority held absolute sway over the liberty-deprived and economically enslaved masses.  I wish I could believe that they were sincere in their devotion to human life as an absolute value but the selectivity about which they defend human life and freedom fails to cloak their real agenda of advancing an American theocracy, and an American theocracy that enshrines a religion of the most narrow prejudices and the self-interest of those who wish to protect their own ascendency over those whom they deem to be less worthy in both this world and the next than themselves.  They have drunk the dregs and now pass around to others the Kool-Aid Karl Rove so successfully used in the Bush campaigns to blind Christians to their political responsibilities to work for a more just world.    And this, in a democracy such as ours, is their right to do but  their sin is attempting to market this poison as some sort of authentically Catholic drink when its very recipe is so devoid of basic Catholic moral principles about the role of the Christian in the modern world.    Their campaign of misinformation and deceit has taken on an urgency with the election of Pope Francis and  his prioritizing the Church’s mission to the poor has made them beat their drums all the louder in an attempt to drown out the Church’s authentic voice calling for greater economic and social justice.  CRS, CCHD and Catholic Charities represent the Church’s concern for justice and unable to take the Pope on directly they are determined to undermine his efforts by attacking with lies and disinformation, Karl Rove style, the agencies by which the Church reaches out to remedy the injustices in the world in which we live.    

When the Internet first became a forum for public information, there was a Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to devise a branding system by which sites could be guaranteed for their Catholic content.  Now personally, I don’t claim to be a Catholic Site or to speak for any sort of authentic Catholicism.  I speak only for myself and this site is about the history of the Church—past and present—and not about its doctrines.  Unfortunately the short-sightedness of our bishops failed to appreciate the importance of establishing some sort of Catholic “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” for Catholic websites.   We need that because Michael Voris and Judie Brown and the American Life League speak for no one other than themselves and their followers.  They do not represent the voice of the Church and they are not reliable sources of Catholic teaching.  And the same goes for the swarms of blogs and web-pages by self-appointed Catholic spokespersons.  

Judie Brown and If The Truth Be Told . . .

Judie Brown, President of American

Life League

Before we return to Saint Francis and the Franciscan Charism in relationship to the Franciscans of the Immaculate, I want to bring something to your attention that is coming to a roiling boil in the Church’s teapot.  When we say “history” we think of the past—and that is most unfortunate as history is not about the past.  The person interested in the past qua past is not a historian but an antiquarian.  The historian uses the past as a metaphor better to understand  the present or to prepare for the future.  Historians are very interested in current matters as today’s news is tomorrow’s history and also because our past gives us windows into the present. 
The katholic krazies are all abuzz in their blogs about the “scandal” surrounding CRS (Catholic Relief Services) and how CRS is not being faithful to the teachings of the Church in allegedly supporting contraceptive programs and even abortions in the developing world.  We owe this news to one Judie Brown who is president of “The American Life League.” Michael Voris of Church Militant TV has been her Paul Revere but what Voris is not telling you and the krazie blogs probably don’t even know is the long term relationship between Judie and CRS that went sour, triggering these unsubstantiated allegations.
You see Judie Brown is not only the president of American Life League but years ago her family started a printing business that printed the materials for ALL.  That permitted Judie to keep ALL resources “in the family” as it were by using ALL money to make Brown money.  There is nothing wrong with that, of course, except for lack of transparency.  The printing business was very successful and other pro-life organizations turned to them for their printing.  Success builds on success and the Brown family printing business did very well.  And CRS turned to the Brown family printing business to do their printing.  Judie's family do good work and at a reasonable price.   From a financial point of view it was win/win for both the Browns and CRS.  In fact CRS became the Brown’s largest client with the massive CRS mailings that go out soliciting donations for the work of Catholic Relief Services.  Their biggest customers!  Then disaster hit—or at least disaster for the Browns.  Ken Hackett, then Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Relief Services, decided that because of the way that Judie Brown and ALL were undermining the work of the Bishops and sowing division in the Church that it was not appropriate for CRS to give the Brown family their business and the Browns lost their biggest customer.  Well, as they say, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  When earlier this year President Obama—a particular bête noire to Ms Brown—appointed Hackett as Ambassador to the Vatican, she was livid.  She wrote a column for Renew America, a right-wing blog decrying the appointment, Hackett, and CRS.  One can only image how chagrined she was that the Holy See did not have objections to Hackett’s appointment. 
Her attempts to discredit Hackett’s appointment were not successful and now Brown has turned on CRS itself.  And who would know better than Judie Brown the hidden sins of CRS—her family business had printed all the CRS materials for years.  And all the time that they held the CRS contract, Judie never sounded the tocsin.  Did CRS money coming into family coffers buy her silence?  Or are her allegations simply retaliation for the financial losses caused her by CRS moving their business elsewhere?  Either way, Ms. Brown doesn’t have the moral high ground.
One of the things I like about CRS is that less than 10% of its income is used for administrative purposes.  This compares with over 33% of ALL’s expenses.  In fact almost 10% of donations to ALL goes to Judie and others who “serve” on ALL’s executive team.    Not shabby when you remember they have a flourishing printing business too. 

Foundations of the Anglican Church XXXII

Anne Boleyn

I am sorry for not having given more attention to this blog as we are in the middle of our Henry VIII saga.  And there is so much that I want to comment on after World Youth Day and other recent events in the Church.  I have recently started a new job and am learning how to manage the work more effectively but a lot of balls get dropped in the juggling act.  Nevertheless, let’s go back to Henry and the English Church for a few more entries and then I want to talk about Francis’ comments on the flight back to Rome from Rio and WYD as well as the neo-traditionalists disillusionment with Francis’ Church and the attempts of neo-trads such as Judie Brown of the American Life League and Michael Voris of Church Militant TV to undermine Francis’ leadership by sabotaging the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities and other outreach programs that embody Francis’ vision for the Church at the service of the world.  But back to Henry. 
I mentioned that Henry began to take mistresses fairly early in his marriage to Katherine of Aragon even though that marriage was initially a happy one.  The sixteenth century was not a time noted for strict rules of moral behavior and it was not unusual for kings and noblemen—or bishops and popes—to take a mistress or a male lover according to their particular tastes.  The popes of Henry’s early years—Julius II and Leo X—were men of the world.  Julius had both male and female lovers, fathering several illegitimate children by his lady loves.  Leo was gay and had several lovers before and during his papacy.  Adrian VI who was pope briefly from 1522-1523 was noted—and somewhat despised—for his personal integrity, but his successor, to whom Henry would appeal for an annulment, Clement VII, was a man of relaxed morals and, as we shall see, valued the marital alliances of his children over the good of the Church.  But that story is a bit down the line yet.
Katherine made no objection, at least as far as we know, to Henry’s dalliances.  She did not see them as a threat to her position as his wife and Queen.  She loved Henry and was slow to recognize his falling out of love with her, but more to the point, her own royal blood kept her secure—she thought—from replacement as wife and Queen by any of the commoners Henry was indulging himself in.  Katherine realized that men of Henry’s stature commonly took mistresses and his dalliances relieved her of too frequent obligations of her “wifely duties.”  And indeed Henry’s fancy for Elizabeth Blount, his only acknowledged mistress, and his relationship with Mary Boleyn, a married woman of aristocratic but not noble birth, were no threat to Katherine’s position.
But as Henry tired of Mary Boleyn, Mary’s younger sister, Anne, came to his notice.  Anne was of a different stripe than Mary.  Mary was a practical sort and understood her duty was to relieve the King’s sexual needs.  She loved Henry but she had no illusions about the social gulf that separated them.  The Boleyn family could not exactly be held up for noble virtue.  Mary Boleyn had been a lady-in-waiting to Henry’s Sister, Mary Tudor when the princess was sent to France to marry the King, Louis XII.   Louis died not long after the marriage and the widowed princess Mary Tudor returned to England, but Mary Boleyn remained behind as a lady-in-waiting to the new Queen, Claude, wife of Francis I.  She earned a bit of a reputation, having affairs with several different men and possibly with King Francis himself.  She returned to England in 1519 and became a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon.  It was then that she was noticed by Henry.  She shortly after married William Carey, a knight in the King’s service, and her relationship with Henry commenced under the guise of her marriage and her accommodating husband. 
Just as her husband was willing to share her favors with the King in hopes of advancement at court, her father realized that his daughter’s royal intimacy could advance his position as well.  These were not highly moral people.  The father, Thomas Boleyn, was married to a woman far above his station, Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and both husband and wife were anxious, even desperate, for his advancement.  Thomas Boleyn had no noble title of his own though through his mother he had a remote hope of someday claiming the Irish title of Earl of Ormond.  Lack of a noble title does not mean that Boleyn was insignificant however.  He had served both Henry VII and Henry VIII well in diplomatic posts and had been named a Knight of the Bath by Henry VIII.  He was Henry’s ambassador to the court of Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands in 1512, as ambassador to France from 1518 to 1521, and as Henry’s ambassador to the Emperor Charles V from 1521-1523.  Indeed for a man of common birth, he held very important positions at Court. 
When Henry lost interest in Mary Boleyn around 1526, Thomas Boleyn panicked.  He saw this liaison amoureuse as his ticket to better things and he was much relieved when Henry, looking for his next fling, looked not far but to the second daughter Anne.  Anne, as a young girl, had been a  lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Austria and then, like her sister Mary, to Mary Tudor during her marriage to Louis XII of France,  to Queen Claude, the wife of Francis I, successor to Louis XII. 
Catholic polemicists in the past were quick to project on Anne the promiscuity of her sister Mary.  Indeed the court of Claude of France was not known for its high moral standards and Anne could not afford to be naïve. It would have been expected of her to be somewhat generous with her “favors” to the flirtatious young men around Queen Claude.  Yet at the court Anne became friends, and to some degree, a protégée of the King’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre.  Marguerite was a highly educated woman and much respected in humanist circles.  Like many of the humanist circle, she was anxious for religious reform and embraced the new theology coming from Germany and Switzerland where Luther, Zwingli, and others were embracing evangelical ideals.  Anne seems to have become devoutly religious though skeptical about papal Catholicism in this period.  Part of that developing anti-papalism—both for Anne and for her patron, Marguerite of Navarre—was the close ties between the papacy and the Court of the emperor Charles V.  Navarre, on the border with Charles’ Spain, was particularly vulnerable.  France was the Empire’s chief rival in Europe both for control of the Netherlands and for influence in the Italian peninsula.  That dependency of the papacy on Charles and his empire would have terrible consequences for the Church of England.
Despite the stories later circulated about her by the religious conservatives of her day and subsequent years, Anne probably retained her virginity through this period.  Virgin she may have been, but Anne was in every other way a high-spirited lady of the French Court.  She was a remarkably intelligent woman to whom languages came easily and she spoke French and read Latin.  She possibly knew some Italian as well.  She was used to the intelligent conversations of humanist circles and had a more than rudimentary knowledge of philosophy and theology.  In addition she was accomplished at dancing, cards, hunting, archery, falconry, lawn tennis, and lawn bowling.  She had very fine taste in clothing, art, and music.  The liveliness and culture of the French court had made its impression on her and when Henry met her, he was smitten.  This was no mere roll-in-the-royal-hay—Anne was entertaining to be with, a match for Henry who was himself highly gifted and inclined to be bored with most of his more mundane companions.  But Anne had noted how Henry had “loved and left” her sister and she was not to be trifled with in that same way.  Soon after Anne’s return to England from France in 1522 Henry made his suit; Anne refused him, leaving court to return to the family home at Hever Castle. 
Anne was coy.  Moreover, her father and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, knew that they could exploit the situation for their own advancement.  Anne was named a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Katherine which kept her at Court and she used her position to charm the King but at the same time to frustrate his desires.   But Henry had more matters on his mind than Anne.  He needed an heir to secure the dynasty and prevent the struggles over the throne that had led to the Wars of the Roses.  He had, of course, a daughter, Mary, his daughter with Katherine of Aragon.  But could a woman rule?  There was no good historical precedent.  Katherine was beyond the years when she could bear a new heir.  But a new Queen could bear a child.