"A Pior Máfia contra o Papa Francisco é o Silêncio dos Cardeais que Apoiam Ele"

Damian Thompson escreveu um ótimo artigo resumindo as tramas secretas do Vaticano e o comportamento do Papa, diante da crise religiosa sobre a Doutrina da Igreja.

Em resumo, ele diz que o Papa Francisco se comporta como um político peronista fazendo lobby para que a Igreja aceite algo que Cristo condenou em palavras claras, que trata do divórcio. Os cardeais frente ao lobby pesado do Papa, no entanto, silenciam, porque sabem que se defenderem o que pede o Papa sofrerão rebelião dentro de suas dioceses, com possível cisma da Igreja.

Assim, entre os cardeais o desejo é que o Pontificado de Francisco acabe o mais rápido possível pois sabem que a Igreja está sob risco, e assim as próprias carreiras deles. Claro que há aqueles que lutam contra o lobby do Papa Francisco por amor a Cristo e às palavras Dele, mas por vezes, não é uma questão de defender Cristo contra o Papa Francisco, mas sim de defender que eles mesmos não sofram com perda de poder, se a Igreja rachar.

Thompson também lembra que uma conferência em Paris, no final desse mÊs, irá discutir a situação de um papa herético, não é nomeado que se irá discutir o caso do Papa Francisco, mas até as pedras sabem que esse será o tema.

Abaixo vai parte do excelente texto de Thompson que foi publicado na revista inglesa The Spectator, leiam todo o texto clicando no link.

The plot against the Pope

It is no secret in Rome that several cardinals want Francis to step down

Damian Thompson

On the first Saturday in February, the people of Rome awoke to find the city covered in peculiar posters depicting a scowling Pope Francis. Underneath were written the words:

Ah, Francis, you have intervened in Congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate, ignored Cardinals… but where is your mercy?

The reference to mercy was a jibe that any Catholic could understand. Francis had just concluded his ‘Year of Mercy’, during which the church was instructed to reach out to sinners in a spirit of radical forgiveness. But it was also a year in which the Argentinian pontiff continued his policy of squashing his critics with theatrical contempt.

Before the Year of Mercy, he had removed (or ‘decapitated’) the leaders of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, apparently for their traditionalist sympathies. During it, he froze out senior churchmen who questioned his plans to allow divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion. As the year finished, the papal axe fell on the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Fra’ Matthew Festing, who during an internal row over the alleged distribution of condoms by its charitable arm had robustly asserted the crusader order’s 800-year sovereignty. Francis seized control of the knights. They are sovereign no longer.

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Although the stunt made headlines around the world, it is unlikely to have unnerved the Pope. There is a touch of the Peronist street-fighter about Jorge Bergoglio. As his fellow Argentinian Jesuits know only too well, he is relaxed about making enemies so long as he is confident that he has the upper hand. The posters convey impotent rage: they are unlikely to carry the fingerprints of senior churchmen.

In any case, it is not anonymous mockery that should worry the Pope: it is the public silence of cardinals and bishops who, in the early days of his pontificate, missed no opportunity to cheer him on.

The silence is ominous because it comes amid suspicion that influential cardinals are plotting against Francis — motivated not by partisan malice, but by fear that the integrity and authority of the papacy is at stake.

Antonio Socci, a leading conservative Vatican-watcher, says that cardinals once loyal to Francis are so concerned about a schism that they are planning to appeal to him to step down. He predicts that the rebellion will be led by about a dozen moderate cardinals who work in the curia.

If, however, we remove the fanciful speculation, we are left with a real story. It is no secret in Rome that certain cardinals who voted for Francis are now worried that he is leading the church towards schism, and that he must therefore be stopped. There are many more than a dozen of them and, though they may not yet be ready to act upon their concerns, they would like this pontificate to end sooner rather than later.

The stakes are so high because the discontent is not fundamentally about personality: it arises from an argument about the central tenets of the faith.

In the end, it all boils down to the question of giving communion to people who are either divorced and remarried or married to a divorced person.

Non-Catholics, and indeed many Catholics, find it hard to understand why this is such a big deal. Put simply, the Catholic church is the only worldwide Christian denomination that takes literally the parts of the Bible (Luke 16:8, Mark 10:11, Matthew 19:9) where Jesus says that divorced and remarried people are committing adultery. This isn’t to say that church authorities haven’t hypocritically (or compassionately) bent the rules down the centuries — but the teaching has remained unchanged.

Until now, anyway. In April last year, Pope Francis released Amoris Laetitia, (‘The Joy of Love’), a 200-page document in response to a synod of the world’s bishops that had rejected any change to the teaching that Catholics in irregular marriages should not receive communion.

To cut a long story short, Francis appeared to go along with the synod’s wishes. But a footnote in Amoris Laetitia hinted (and it was just a hint) that couples, in consultation with a priest, could decide for themselves whether to receive the sacrament.

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To a great many in Rome, it looks as if the Pope is single-handedly ripping apart church teaching — in defiance of his own hierarchy. ‘It’s utterly bizarre. He’s actually been ringing round asking for support on this,’ says a priest in the Vatican. Like an American president lobbying senators? ‘Exactly. But he’s not getting the answers he wanted. Instead, there’s this silence that has not greeted any other papal exhortation I can think of.’

Why the silence? The answer is that the Pope has put cardinals and bishops in an impossible situation.

Consider the case of England and Wales. Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the bishops’ conference, could not issue a set of German-style ‘anything goes on divorce’ guidelines even if he wanted to (and no one knows what the inscrutable Nichols really wants, except perhaps to be Pope himself).

The conservative Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth has already said that there will be no change of pastoral practice in his diocese, full stop. Nichols couldn’t even sell relaxed guidelines to his own Westminster diocese: at least one of his bishops would rebel.

This dilemma is being replicated all over the world. Two thirds of diocesan bishops either believe that the Pope is monkeying with the fundamentals of Christian doctrine or, taking a more lenient view, think his misguided compassion has created pastoral chaos. And the chaos will persist for as long as this man is Pope.

Which is why — despite various efforts to cast Francis in the role of ‘great reformer’ squaring up to satin-clad dinosaurs — moderate cardinals are ready for a new pope who can kick this wretched issue into the long grass.

But how can this be achieved? The moderates aren’t keen to join forces with anti-Francis conservatives, who are already, as those posters showed, taking resistance to extraordinary lengths.

At the end of this month, the University of Paris-Sud is hosting a conference on ‘the canonical problem of the deposition of heretical popes’. The organisers are not openly suggesting that Francis falls into this category, but others may draw their own conclusions. Two of the professors giving papers have asked the Pope to rule against ‘heretical’ misunderstandings of Amoris Laetitia — which he refuses to do. So some of the theoretical discussions of deposing popes may be rather pointed.

But can Francis really be forced out of office by canon law? Moderate cardinals wouldn’t countenance it even if it were possible. That leaves what Socci calls ‘moral suasion’, otherwise known as arm-twisting. Several cardinals believe that this is what happened to Benedict XVI, though the pope emeritus insists that the decision to resign was his alone. Benedict, a theologian, grew to hate being pope. Francis, by contrast, loves it so much that he hasn’t taken a holiday since walking on to the balcony of St Peter’s. That doesn’t mean that no one will try to persuade Francis to step down, but God help them when they do.

This leaves the Catholic church in deadlock. To quote one Vatican employee, ‘Liberal or conservative, what most cardinals want is release from the endless fatigue created by Francis.’