A few days ago, the Washington Compost, through its "correspondent" Emma-Kate Symons, put forth a piece of editorial excrement. Symons condescended to offer some precious pearls of wisdom to tell "How Pope Francis Can Cleanse The Far-Right Rot From The Catholic Church". I'm suspecting that Symons herself isn't Catholic so I fail to see how she has a dog in this fight - except to quell a possible nagging conscience by attempting to silence the voice of God as it sounds forth from the Church's timeless teachings. She refers to Burke as "renegade cleric", "rebel prince", "unrepentant and defiant", etc. Dare I speculate that Symons doesn't know diddly-squat about real repentance? But I digress. We get hints of her biases and mindsets as we see telltale catch phrases such as "Francis' reformist compassionate papacy", "conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominence", etc.
Symons is great at contradicting herself. She suggests that the pope rebuke Burke for "his unacceptable political interventions" while in the next paragraph she defends the pope for "daring to suggest that building a wall on the United States’ southern border was un-Christian." Boys and girls, can we say "double standard"? Or is acceptability of "political interventions" dependent on their leftward tilt?
Symons' suggestions to the pope only serve to illustrate her complete ignorance of what constitutes Church teaching by saying, "Francis could seize the agenda. In time-honored papal tradition, he could write an encyclical on the burning questions of populism and nationalism, with specific reference to migrants, Muslims and Jews, so priests including Burke know they are in breach of church teaching when they try to act as power brokers for the international extreme right." Reminder - the Church can only teach authoritatively on Faith and Morals in keeping with Tradition. Anything else, including this "encyclical" that Symons suggests would simply be outside the proper competence of the Magisterium. Oh, they might try such a stunt but such pronouncements would not bind on pain of sin.
Now that we see why subscription numbers at the Compost are plummeting, let's take a look at the Guardian from "across the pond". They seem to have received the same progressive Vatican talking points. They tell us that "US Cardinal Raymond Burke Stokes Papal Tensions By Meeting Nationalist In Rome". This drivel was spewed forth by Stephanie Kirchgaessner. What seems to have her undies bunched is that the Cardinal met with Matteo Salvini, a supporter of President Trump. We gather that Kirchgaessner herself has a visceral animosity towards Trump, as do many of the pope's lackeys in the Vatican. As Kirchgaessner states, Cardinal Joseph Tobin opined that Trump's travel ban was "opposite of what it means to be an American". I might point out that Tobin's indifference to lesbians using a KofC hall in his diocese to celebrate their perversion was "opposite of what it means to be a bishop".
Did Kirchgaessner issue rebukes to the Vatican for inviting anti-life and anti-God persons to speak to them? If so, I'd be grateful if links to those articles would be directed to me. I speak of:
- Paul Ehrlich's scheduled appearance at a Vatican conference in a few weeks.
- Jeffrey Sachs
- John Schnellnhuber
- Jerry Brown (yes, Moonbeam himself)
- Naomi Klein
I'm sure I could drudge up others, but these make the case that progressives such as Symons and Kirchgaessner are acting like good little lapdogs for their Vatican counterparts, waxing indignant about Cardinal Burke while turning willfully blind eyes to true slime oozing forth from the Vatican.
