Vatican Obliged to Edit Scandalous Words of Pope Francis
This just in from CNA/EWTN: Rome, Italy, Jun 16, 2016 – “Pope Francis said Thursday that the great majority of sacramental marriages today are not valid, because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment. ‘We live in a culture of the provisional,’ the Pope said in impromptu remarks June 16. After addressing the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral congress, he held a question-and-answer session.” READ ARTICLE HERE
REMNANT COMMENT: Here’s some video footage of the event, followed by a comment from a good priest. It is not necessary to view the entire thing. Just watch a few moments as the pope speaks. What is he doing, exactly, with this meandering, sort of self-absorbed display? What are we looking at? What is happening to Pope Francis?
So, according to Pope Francis, the great majority of sacramental marriages today are not valid. What do we do with this?
Well the situation is so out of control that the Vatican had to edit the Pope’s words in this case, after he came under a firestorm of criticism for them. According to a Reuters report, the Vatican issued a transcript on Friday morning in which the Pope’s own words had to be changed to read “some” instead of “a great majority”. A Vatican spokesman said the pope’s off-the-cuff remarks are sometimes edited after consulting with him or among aides..
Holy cow! What is going on here? It’s nice that the Vatican recognized the need to edit the pope’s outrageous words, but what about the ramificaitons of all this? Who is now speaking for the Pope? Is the Pope going to be allowed to continue doing this? What about the scandal that ensued in the meantime? As one good priest noted in a private email just this morning:
“What a dreadfully irresponsible statement! How can the Pope possibly presume to judge the state of mind of millions of couples who are carefully prepared for marriage, and so assert (not just suspect or surmise) that “the great majority” have null and void marriages because they don’t know what they are doing or promising? I would think many of the couples I’ve prepared for marriage would feel pretty insulted by Francis’ condescending and sweeping generalization.
“Pardon me, but, er, . . . Who is he to judge? This kind of statement could well encourage liberal marriage tribunals to be ever more lax in handing out decrees of nullity. Indeed, Pope Francis ties himself in knots here by saying that plenty of “faithful” cohabiting couples are truly married in God’s sight and so have the grace of matrimony! But aren’t they part of that same defective culture which he says invalidates “the great majority” of church marriages?
“In other words, incredibly, we have a Successor of Peter insinuating that you’re more likely to be truly married if you’re a couple who’ve never made any marriage vows, and so don’t even consider yourselves married, than if you are married in the Church and have made marriage vows! I’m sorry, but with all due respect to the Holy Father, this is craziness.”
With all due respect, and speaking only for myself, it may well be time to consider the possibility that Pope Francis is entering his dotage, and is no longer in complete control of his mental faculties. For me the alternative is much worse, that he is intentionally attempting to confuse and disorient the entire Catholic world. I hope, for his sake, that he is merely suffering the initial stages of dementia. He’s still a modernist always and forever, of course, but now we’re moving into complete La La Land.
St. Dymphna, pray for Pope Francis.
