Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The Destructive Bergoglio

At a time when we need our most venerable institutions to stand as bulwarks against the rising tide of wokery, what we find instead is capitulation.  When the head of the ancient Roman church abdicates, we are surely in for it. Corruptio optimi pessima.

Cardinal Pell vents his righteous fury at the Vatican's theological direction here.

What explains the stampede toward wokery? One causal factor is groupthink.

Horribile dictu: the Girl Scouts have joined the mad rush, offering a merit badge for LGBTQ+ awareness. 

'Wokeassery,' a coinage of mine, is another word for wokery, a word to be found in reputable dictionaries. It brings in the donkey theme, the jackass being the symbol of the Dementocrats.

Related: Heather Mac Donald on cultural survival and the Left's new default setting. Brilliant and deep analysis. But again just more analysis with nary a concrete suggestion as to what to do to restore sanity.

UPDATE (7/13)

Rod Dreher on Bergoglio's consolidation of his 'progressive' revolution.

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Bill Vallicella

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15 responses to “The Destructive Bergoglio”

  1. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Michael Matt nails it in this video about the Vatican:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlikRXPd-w

    Reply
  2. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    We all know the record of this cynical, manipulative, evil man: the material heresies and intentionally equivocal teachings, the rank indifferentism, the protection and advancement of sexual abusers, the betrayal of the Chinese faithful, the purge of high orthodox prelates and priests, the devious and brutal suppression of the Roman Rite, the advancement of heretical and heterodox cleric to the cardinalate, and so on. Here, I just want to call attention to the greater scandal of the Church under this Pontificate, that is, THE SILENCE OF ALL BUT A FEW CARDINALS AND BISHOPS, ALL BUT A HANDFULL OF THEOLOGIANS AND CATHOLIC ACADEMICS, AND ONLY A RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF THE FAITHFUL IN REACTION TO THIS OPEN ASSAULT, AT THE SERVICE OF THE GLOBAL LEFT, ON THE GOSPEL, DOGMA, DOCTRINE, AND TRADITION. Something is very wrong here, and it is not just with Bergoglio and his henchmen; the rot is very widespread and very deep. We must take refuge where we can, with the SSPX and other orthodox fraternities or with those priests who are ready to break with the hierarchy to defend the Church as founded by Christ. The time of the catacombs is returning.

    Reply
  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    Especially troubling to me is the vast number of useful idiots who gush over Pope Francis and cannot see him for what he is. This group is distinct from the crafty carfeerists in the RCC hierarch and in academe who go along to get alone and advance themselves. An especially puzzling case of a useful idiot is that of the contemplative nun, Sr. Wendy Beckett, who makes a number of surprisingly acute criticisms of the theological and political liberal, Thomas Merton. She appears to be as fascinated with him as I am and has comes to many of the same conclusions. And yet she is taken in by Bergoglio similarly as so many women have been taken in by Joe Biden.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    . . . crafty CAREERISTS in the RCC HIERARCHY . . .
    As for Sr. Wendy Beckett, see here: https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2022/11/a-contemplative-nun-on-thomas-merton.html

    Reply
  5. BV Avatar
    BV

    The other day I bought the book referenced above. Here is what Sr Wendy says about Benedict XVI:
    Although there were days when we shuddered at the mention of Ratzinger’s name, grim watchdog of a very narrow faith, it would seem. His books are so profoundly alive with the joy of the faith. He hasn’t the sweetness of Pope Francis, but one can only love him for what he’s given us about Our Blessed Lord. (p. 39)

    Reply
  6. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Sr. Wendy Beckett and the case of the Girl Scouts show that women are more easily fooled by evil than men are. It is easy to trick their nurturing sentiments.

    Reply
  7. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Yes, there are millions of “useful idiots,” such as Sr Wendy who bizarrely speaks of Bergoglio’s “sweetness:” they are products of two centuries of hyper-papalism and a de-masculinized Christianity. Along with them, we have the orthodox wishful thinkers, on whom I have commented before on this blog, those who regard the present, unprecedented crisis as nothing more than one of many historical “blips,” which will be forgotten in time (https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2021/05/an-ecclesiological-contretemps-edward-feser-versus-rod-dreher.html).

    Reply
  8. BV Avatar
    BV

    That’s right, Joe.

    Reply
  9. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito writes:
    >>What is going on now, right before our eyes will never become some historical “blip.” The magisterium, both ordinary and extraordinary, may still stand, but how long will this be the case if it is increasingly ignored, subverted, and questioned? If the words of the Pater Noster, which are clear in both Greek and Latin, can be altered at will to make them more theologically acceptable to the bien pensant, what is beyond the reach of “reform”? Thus, those who remain loyal to the Church should have no illusions about the uniquely destructive nature of this crisis. It is being advanced by dangerous “progressive” forces, increasingly aligned with the global Left, that have taken control of the leading institutions of the Church and whose objective is the eradication of the very core of traditional Roman Catholic thought and practice.<<

    Reply
  10. BV Avatar
    BV

    What is so despicable about Bergoglio and his ‘woke’-globalist pals is that they are betraying the trust of those who entrusted them with the depositum fidei.
    Now there are elements of that deposit that I do not accept and that ought to be questioned and have been by Protestants and others, and sometimes with good reasons.
    As I see it, what is wholly unacceptable is not the questioning of trad doctrine, but the refusal of those who have been entrusted with its preservation to preserve it. The RCC is what it is; if Bergoglio and Co. don’t like it, they ought to quit and get honest jobs.
    I don’t deny that there is such a legitimate thing as ‘development of doctrine.’ What I deny is that ‘woke’ secularization and the cutting of links to tradition by eliminating the Latin mass and other similar ‘reforms’ could possibly count as development of doctrine. That would be the destruction of doctrine, not its development.

    Reply
  11. BV Avatar
    BV

    Bergoglio is to the RCC as Obama is to America. One who calls for a “fundamental transformation of America” intends its destruction; one who calls for Bergoglian reforms is intending, or at least working towards, the “fundamental transformation of the RCC.”
    Could it be that Bergoglio fails to grasp that the RCC cannot achieve its perfection by being secularized, that such secularization would be its utter destruction?
    Here is another comparison to explore: Bergoglio is to the RCC as Gen Milley is to the military. An RCC gone ‘woke’ is an RCC destroyed; the same goes for a military gone woke.

    Reply
  12. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Madness … Catastrophe … Sanity.
    I am beginning to think this sequence is inevitable.
    And that we are at the first three dots.
    God help us.

    Reply
  13. BV Avatar
    BV

    Bill, a LinkedIn contact of mine, Stanley K. Ridgley, Ph.D., came out a couple of months ago with Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in Our Universities. What I’ve read so far—only the long sample accessible on Amazon’s product page—looks promising. I asked him how we can “get out from under” (exposure and refutation alone won’t do). He said “Chapter 9 offers a series of remedies, long-term and for students now. Tangible body blows that students can administer with little chance of blow-back. Let me know what you think on reading!” which I won’t be able to do for a while. (The Queens Library system says no copies are available.) If you’re so inclined, check out the reading sample (there’s a shorter audio version). He has an interesting background. (See below.)
    https://www.amazon.com/BRUTAL-MINDS-Left-Wing-Brainwashing-Universities/dp/163006226X

    Reply
  14. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    “What explains the stampede toward wokery? One causal factor is groupthink.”
    James Lindsay identified a different causal factor, which may or may not play into groupthink. He said recently on Twitter that “Woke was the analysis produced by people with a suite of personality disorders, paranoia and cluster B.” That sounds about right to me.

    Reply
  15. BV Avatar
    BV

    AOC, a wokeass if ever there was one, exemplifies at least two of the Cluster B characteristics: histrionic behavior and narcissism.

    Reply

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