MILAN, Italy, November 9, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A best-selling Italian writer has broken his silence on the current papacy to voice concerns over Pope Francis’ attitude toward doctrine.
Vittorio Messori, 76, is best-known in the English-speaking world for his book-length interviews with then-Cardinal Ratzinger in The Ratzinger Report (1987) and with Pope John Paul II in Threshold of Hope. The journalist has now published an essay in an Italian Catholic magazine, Il Timore, outlining his fears that Pope Francis is turning the Catholic Church into a kind of “liquid society” in which the only certainty is uncertainty and the only constant is change.
The article, which is not available online, was first brought to the attention of the English-speaking world by Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register.
In his essay, Messori draws on the work of Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), the Jewish-Polish philosopher who introduced the concept of “liquid modernity” to sociology. “Liquid modernity” represents a change from what Bauman called “solid modernity.” Bauman wrote that the “liquid” modern man values individualism over social ties. He “flows through his own life like a tourist, changing places, jobs, spouses, values and even sexual orientation and gender.”
Bauman observed that such a man excludes himself from traditional networks of support, freeing himself from their restrictions or requirements. This extreme individualism has created societies in which, Messori writes, “everything is unstable and changeable.” Today it is acceptable to believe that change is “the only permanent thing” and that uncertainty is the “only certainty.”
Messori is troubled that these ideas have begun to influence religious faith. He writes that believers are becoming “disturbed by the fact that even the Catholic Church — which was an age-old example of stability — seems to want to become ‘liquid’ as well.”
Francis is engaging in chronological snobbery or what the French philosopher Jacques Maritain referred to as"chronolatry" in his work "Le paysan de la Garonne" - The Peasant of the Garonne.
Maritain defines chronolatry as the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time. This is the characteristic flaw of today's "progressive" who looks upon the wisdom of the ages and dismisses it as nothing more than "theories" which belong to the past.
Is there really any doubt that Francis views the Catholic Church as "outdated" and "stagnant." recall what his niece had to say about the Church and his "mission" here.
2 comments:
For the Roman Catholic Church to become merely a reflection of the current times (whatever times those might be) would render Her *not* the true Catholic Church that Christ founded. How then would the Catholic Church be any different from a Protestant sect that makes up the "rules" and tenets" of their "faith" as they wish to personally interpret them? We are living in very troubling and confusing times for Holy Mother Church. Holy Spirit, please lead us into all Truth.
But what if my conscience tells me he is a heretic? He will not answer that question. Ever.
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