The Closed Door of Pope Francis

By Sandro Magister
Chiesa
May 11, 2015

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351045?eng=y

Since the end of the 2014 synod, he has spoken dozens of times on abortion, divorce, and homosexuality. But he hasn't said a single word more in support of the “openness” demanded by the innovators

ROME, May 11, 2015 – The second and last session of the synod on the family is approaching, and the temperature of the discussion keeps going up.

The latest uproar is over an onslaught of the German bishops, who now take as a given, in the “cultural context” of their local Church, substantial changes of doctrine and pastoral practice in matters of divorce and homosexuality:

> Synod. The German Bishops Are Putting the Cart Before the Horse (6.5.2015)

Nothing new, in this. Most of the bishops of Germany have for some time been entrenched in positions of this kind, even before Cardinal Walter Kasper opened fire with the memorable introductory talk at the February 2014 consistory of cardinals, in support of communion for the divorced and remarried:

> The True Story of This Synod. Director, Performers, Assistants (17.10.2014)

The new development is another. And it has as its protagonist Pope Francis.

Until the synod of October 2014, Jorge Mario Bergoglio had repeatedly and in various ways shown encouragement for “openness” in matters of homosexuality and second marriages, each time with great fanfare in the media. Cardinal Kasper explicitly said that he had “agreed” with the pope on his explosive talk at the consistory.

But during that synod the resistance to the new paradigms showed itself to be much more strong and widespread than expected, and determined the defeat of the innovators. The reckless “relatio post disceptationem” halfway through the assembly was demolished by the criticism and gave way to a much more traditional final report.

In accompanying this unfolding of the synod Pope Francis also contributed to the turning point himself, among other ways by rounding out the commission charged with writing the final report - until then under the brazen dominion of the innovators - by adding personalities of opposing viewpoints.

But it is above all from the end of the synod on that Francis has taken a new course with respect to the one that he initially traveled.

From the end of 2014 until today, there has not been even one more occasion on which he has given the slightest support to the paradigms of the innovators.

On the contrary. He has intensified his remarks on all the most controversial questions connected to the synodal theme of the family: contraception, abortion, divorce, second marriages, homosexual marriage, “gender” ideology. And every time he has spoken of them as a “son of the Church” - as he loves to call himself - with ironclad fidelity to tradition and without swerving by a millimeter from what was said before him by Paul VI, John Paul II, or Benedict XVI.

This website has already published an anthology of all the statements of Pope Francis on the questions cited, from the end of October 2014 to the beginning of March 2015:

> Vatican Diary / The two-step of the Argentine pope (17.3.2015)

And below is the follow-up to the anthology, with all the further statements of the pope from the middle of March until now: eighteen in less than two months, added to the twenty-one of the previous block.

In the media circuit the innovators continue to enjoy great visibility and applause, and Francis continues to be depicted as one of them.

This presumed support of his continues to be taken for granted even by Bergoglio’s most fervent admirers, as for example that “Cenacle of friends of Pope Francis” that meets each month behind the Vatican walls, with mentors Cardinals Kasper and Francesco Coccopalmerio.

But the reality is entirely different. As a perfect Jesuit, Bergoglio is a great realist and has already understood - even just from scanning the names of the delegates elected by the various national episcopates - that the next session of the synod will be even more unfavorable for the innovators than the previous one.

He knows that the final decisions will be up to him and to him alone. But he also knows that it will be impossible for him to impose on the whole Catholic world innovations that are far from having gained the prior collegial consent of the bishops.

Who live not only in the decadent German Church, but in Africa, Asia, and all those living “peripheries” of the world that are so dear to him.