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During the last period of global warming, after the last Ice Age, we were trying to domesticate mastodons to do the work that had been done by brontosauri, like Fred Flinstone's Brontocrane at Mr. Slate's rock and gravel quarry. All of the Brontos that were "quick frozen" had been taken off to be turned into fossil fuel for later use, or at least I have been told that by the pseudo-Darwinians.
In those days, we were taught in Sunday School, and in catechism, and in general conversation among ourselves that the Roman church was just another Apostolic sect of the Christian Religion, and one which practised a form of worship that involved formalised ritual with, liturgy, and Judaic foundations....much like the "real Catholic Church" which, of course, was Anglican...or Episcopal in the United States.
Father Rilling, who was a saint in my estimation, would say, "We feel that our traditions are well founded and trace equally back to Saints Peter and Paul, and that our system of Bishops forming the basis of our loose confederation of Catholic traditionalism permits the most discipline and the most liberty to each diocese. In other words we do not have to kiss the Pope's big toe, because we recognise him as the Bishop of Rome and as a holder of no higher office."
One Sunday School session shortly after, a classmate asked Father Rilling, after we were told that the Queen of England is the present head of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, "If the Queen is the head of the Church, then do we have to kiss the Queen's big toe?" There were several adults in the room at that time, and they all had a big chuckle at our classmate's question....but we did not know precisely why. Later, when the silly old people had left, Father Rilling informed up that no one is allowed to even shake hands or touch in any way HRH Queen Elizabeth.
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But, as a fairly poor Christian, and a fairly poor Episcopalian, there is still an interest in the Orthodox parts of the Religion founded by a Jew and followed to a greater or lesser extent by more people than Islam or Buddhism. We even try to keep up with the reformists and Protestant parts of the Christian whole.
We are aware of the good and the bad done by all the various sects, divisions, denominations (or is that demonination?). This particular elevation of this particular archbishop - cardinal to be the Vicar of Christ may well be....has the potential to be....a bulwark of traditionalism, deference to Natural Law, and a shoring up from the scars, erosions, and luridity that has plagued the Roman denomination. It has also suffered from wholesale assault by homosexuals, by the popular atheistic culture, and by the contradictory notion titled "liberation theology" pushed by marxists-with-collars.
There are two groups in the Roman church that are fundamentally dedicated to using the name of the church as a smokescreen to further the degradation, secularisation, and destruction of the Church...all Churches...or anything sacred. As now in the Anglican Communion, especially in the United States, the clergy and most of the higher-placed laity is is dedicated to Social Democracy, Abortion, Homosexual Rights, Income redistribution, and other secular humunist canons. Like the liberation ''theologists" and atheists, they seem totally dedicated to the religion of secular humanism, socialism, and the elevation of all perversions to the status of normalcy. Most Episcopal clergy, ordained in the last 30 years, have no great Anglican background. They have not been "called" , but rather they have been recruited due to their commitment to the cause of destroying the hated Judeo-Christian traditions of American governance and the Divine Causation view of the Cosmos. They hate religion, especially historically influential or important religion.
| Ignatius Loyola Founder of the Jesuit Order |
The Roman Catholics suffer the sedition of and by much of the Jesuit Order and the establishment of the staunchly Red....totally marxist....Maryknoll Sisters. The Jesuit Order (Soldiers of Christ), was founded by Ignatius Loyola in the early part of the 16th Century). He was a high-born person, a nobleman, a knight, and a genius. He petitioned the Pope and was finally granted permission to found an evangelical and studious order of monks in service to the Church, to restore the place of Roman Catholicism and to resist the popular fervour of the Reformation. During the 20th Century, the Jesuits began to drift more and more into line with the "obvious inevitability of the victory of socialism". They were integral in the promulgation and propagation of the silliness of "liberation theology". They abandoned their extremely high level of performance in the field of education....secular, Christian, and Catholic....and began to flail their charges with the Truth of Egalitarianism, Punishment of the Wealthy, hatred for America, hatred for morality unless it be defined by the rules forming the culture of Social Democracy. It became an Order devoted completely to secular humanism and hatred for anything Christian. Our famous Miss Fluke, who wants my granddaughters aged 4 and 8, to pay for her birth control pill...attends the law school of Georgetown University which is completely under the control of ultra-radical Jesuit devil zealots.
A few of the Jesuits struggled through this maze and came out as classical Jesuits. At this time the Order is estimated to be about 80% marxist, liberation theologists and about 20% classical Soldiers of Christ. They are all at least nominally well educated. The best, and most profoundly studied, and most disciplined thinkers are the traditionalist. Pope Francis is a traditionalist.
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THE PROBLEM WITH FRANCIS, BISHOP of ROME and the PROBLEMS HE WILL FACE:
The problem with Francis, Bishop of Rome, is not his. It is ours. We will be assaulted with the news about how he is "out of it", that he does not understand that the Roman Church must change or die. We...Roman Catholic, old Anglican, other Orthodox and the bulk of the Protestant element...will assume that this sluffy, dull thinking will be adapted to by the Vatican and we will have another wave of reforms and witch hunts against people who think that homosexuality is, at best, an aberrant behaviour, and that there are absolute truths.
BUT! Take faith! As we stated, Francis, the Bishop of Rome, is one of the twenty percent of the Jesuits who are traditionalists. He has suffered a form of Inquisition by the haughty marxists and liberation theologist Jesuits in Argentina. That group has ruled the roost in Argentina for many years. He was semi-exiled by the Order to neo-secular teaching jobs in the distant north of the country. But that was, in many ways, a great blessing. His authority as a priest gave him the opportunity to preach, say mass, perform rites, and to have contact with old and young. His un-presupposing way, his commonality, and his workaholicism both in acts and studies....began to impress everyone around him...especially in the secular area.
The stodgy and aloof hierarchy in Argnetina's Roman Catholic bureacratic and cumbersome administrative structure were moved by his successes in evangelising and renewing religious practise, something that had been in steady decline over the years, dating back to the Peronist times. He was not ostentatious. He did not require a deluxe apartment or a large black car with a full-time chauffeur. He could eat tapas at the sidewalk cafe, or stand in line at a streetside taco wagon waiting his turn. He could preach. And when he worked his way up to Archbishop of the Buenos Aires Archdiocese, he demonstrated that he could administer fairly and evenly a very large subdivision of the Roman Catholic Church.
He could call for and require reasonable righteousness from the clergy at all levels. He could exhort the baptised and confirmed to their rosaries and votives, and he could balance the books. He also made himself very, very unpopular with the Presidents Kirchner, both the husband and his widow Cristina who is now President. He opposed the social agenda and the notion that making a rich man poor could somehow benefit in the effort to make a poor man more well-to-do.
THE GOOD NEWS:
The good news is that Francis is bad news for his brother Jesuit detractors, Catholic revisionists in general, the concept of 'liberation theology', and those who want the Church, any Church, to simply disappear. The further good news is that Francis seems willing to move along a Conservative path in all matters. He does not appear to be, based upon his last 35 years of service, needful of adapting to movements that might be more popular with the American Obsolete Media and Miss Sandra Fluke.
So, now all OROGs know the opinion of El Gringo Viejo about the new Bishop of Rome. Working, living, and travelling in Mexico, one comes to the realisation that the Roman Catholic Church was, is, and will continue to be something of a 10 million ton elephant in the parlour. The parlour includes almost all of Latin America, and much of the rest of the world. It will help to have someone who can speak Jesuit, but without a marxist accent. He is a humble and likable man, a competent man, and I think, a pious man.
Thanks to all of you for your time and interest.
El Gringo Viejo
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