Por Que Ninguém Ouve Quando o Papa É Católico?

Engraçado esse titulo do post, não é? Mas é que com Papa Francisco pela primeira vez se tem perguntado seriamente se o Papa é católico, se segue realmente o que prega a Igreja há milênios.

Eu conheço pelo menos dois textos, um em um site católico e outro em um jornal inglês, que perguntam seriamente se o Papa Francisco é católico. Vejam aqui e aqui.

Li ontem um texto bem interessante no site de Sandro Magister que traz novamente a discussão, mas  sob um novo ângulo.

A questão é: O Papa Francisco, por vezes, costuma defender a Doutrina eterna da Igreja em alguns discursos mas ninguém, nem a mídia, presta a atenção nisso, por que será?

Resumindo, Sandro Magister diz que apesar de alguns discursos "católicos" do Papa, há quatro  razões para se ignorar esses discursos:

1) A mídia prefere manter a imagem dele como Papa que procura destruir parte da Doutrina, especialmente sobre casamento, família e gays;

2) O Papa gosta de exaltar a imagem do "quem sou eu para julgar", gosta de ser visto diferente de João Paulo II, que lutou contra o comunismo, e  de Bento XVI que lutou contra o relativismo;

3) O Papa também exalta encontros com gays e outros que odeiam a Doutrina da Igreja, como em encontros que faz com casais gays, como que abençoando esses casais. A foto acima mostra um desses encontros que foi divulgada com louvor pela mídia internacional. O Papa se encontra com Yayo Grassi, amigo argentino do Papa, com o "parceiro" dele Iwan Bagus.

4) O Papa nunca reage contra decisões de países que estão em em contrário a Doutrina na Igreja. Os países adotam eutanásia, aborto e casamento gay e o Papa silencia.

Magister conclui dizendo que agindo assim o Papa mantém a Doutrina sob ataque total do secularismo, como uma abrigo anti-aéreo sob ataque.

Vejam o texto do site de Magister:

No One Listens To Him, When He Defends Life and Family. And There's a Reason

One time, when he was visiting Turin, he said to a crowd of young people: “Be chaste, be chaste.” And he almost apologized: “Pardon me if I am telling you something you did not expect.”

Pope Francis is also this. A pope who occasionally goes back in time and reiterates the precepts of the perennial Church. Such as not aborting. Or to use his words to the young people in Turin: not “to kill children before they are born.”

The mainstream media minimize it or are silent when Francis departs from his dominant image, as a pontiff who is permissive on subjects that until a few years ago the Church defined as “non-negotiable.”

And yet there have been so many times, at least a hundred, in which he has departed from it, even in solemn circumstances as in Strasbourg, in front of the European parliament, when he condemned the logic of the “discardable,” of the elimination of all human lives that are no longer functional, “as in the case of the sick, of the terminally ill, the elderly who are abandoned and uncared for.” It is what he customarily calls “hidden euthanasia.”

But it was as if he had not even said it. His speech in Strasbourg was greeted with thunderous applause from all the seats of the assembly, and calmly shelved.

This is also what happened in mid-November, when Francis dug up no less than a warning from Pius XII to reiterate the condemnation of euthanasia, here too with the media instead interpreting his words as an “opening.”

A week later, in two consecutive homilies at Santa Marta, the pope also took aim at the “ideological colonization” that presumes to wipe out the difference between the sexes. One year ago, while he was in Georgia, he even branded it as “a world war to destroy marriage.”

Even these repeated outbursts of his trickled away like water on marble. Ignored.

The press may have its share of the blame, but it is truly paradoxical that this should happen to a pope like Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whose mastery in the use of the media is seen as unbeatable. Unless one were to hypothesize that he in the first place is the one who wants these statements of his to have no impact, and above all to do no damage to his reputation as a pontiff with the passing of time.

One thing is certain: the epic head-on confrontation between a John Paul II and modernity, or between a Benedict XVI and the “dictatorship of relativism,” is something that Pope Francis does not want to revive in the least. He is perfectly content to have his pontificate interpreted in the reassuring light of “who am I to judge?” and as a consequence never to have any of his spoken or written words on these divisive issues taken as definitive and definitional, but to be offered as harmless, pliable, up to the judgment of each individual.

This result has also been produced by Bergoglio’s ability to perform gestures with an impact in the media that is incomparably more powerful than that of words.

When two years ago, at the end of his visit to the United States, he gave a very warm audience (see photo) to one of his Argentine friends, Yayo Grassi, accompanied by his Indonesian “partner,” Iwan Bagus, this was enough to consecrate the image of Francis as open to homosexual marriage, in spite of all his words to the contrary.

And vice-versa, when imposing crowds, Catholic and not, take to the streets in defense of marriage between man and woman and against “gender” theories, as happened in Paris with the “Manif pour tous” or in Rome with the “Family Day,” the pope is cautious not to say a single word in their defense. Nor much less to protest against the victories of the opposing side. When in May of 2015 in Ireland the “yes” on homosexual marriage won, Francis left to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state, the duty of calling that result “a defeat for humanity,” and thus of taking upon himself the inevitable accusations of obscurantism.

In short, where and when the political and cultural battle is raging for or against the affirmation of new rights, Pope Francis remains silent. And he speaks instead far away from the contest, in the places and moments most sheltered from attack.

He preserves the Church’s traditional doctrine this way, as in an air raid shelter.

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O Papa é católico?

Rezemos por ele e pela Igreja.