Frankly No

Los Angeles Cathedral | Ximo Michavila photo

[ 5 minute read ]

Pope Francis, i.e., to be Frank, has dug a very large hole and filled it with not an insignificant amount of silliness for the next pope - whoever that might be - to step into.

The word of the season is, of course, the word 'confusion'. Here's another word which, by now, is entirely familiar to concerned Catholics: mess. Christmas 2023 was turned into Crassmess by that now infamous document issued by the DDF, written by Cardinal Tucho the eroticist. Eroticist, to put it politely.

Here is another word: chaos.

Chaos: the state of things wherein faithful Catholics are tempted to indulge a variety of useless distractions, emotions, and what-have-you, as a result of the introduction of the imprudent actions of hierarchs who should know better than to put souls at risk.

Candy Not Candy

We Catholics are not prudes. Witness the sublime Catholic art of Michelangelo, for starters, and his virtuosic respect for and rendering of the human form. We do believe in modesty, and Cardinal Fernandez's past writings sport a metric tonne of immodesty.

There are many reasons why Catholics do not treat lightly human sexuality and the intricacies of sexual bonding. Nor do Catholics subject the art of physical intimacy to the gruesome creepiness of contemporary man by writing erotic books and attempting to pass them off as Catholic spiritual treatises.

To conserve what truly requires solemnity and respect, Catholics shun digressions which reduce sex to table talk, like those candy-coloured magazines do that line the approaches to grocery store cashiers by splashing topics in ways that cheapen intimate human relations and reduce human sexuality to mere caricatures of God's design. Speaking of lineups, it is no coincidence that such magazines and other candies are located where they are. Businesses know how to create temptations,... and open people's wallets.

The beauty of human relations, i.e., exclusive intimate relations between a man and a woman, must be accompanied by a deeply reverential appreciation for the play of a wife and her husband. Attempts to dissect the mystery and subject it to narrow observations often reduce an icon of Jesus and His Bride the Church to a cheap idol. The so-called sexual revolution is an iconoclasm against the human body-mind-soul and our relationship to God, and the divine possibilities of vocations born of the Holy Spirit.

St. John Paul II said that the union possible for spouses could be so profound they have but one interior life between them!

The other unique element of the sacrament of marriage, he explains, is that the spouses confer the sacrament to each other. This giving one to another through their marital vows does not end at the altar on the wedding day. Spouses continue to give the sacrament to each other every day of their lives. In this way, the spouses become the conduit of the “action of God” in their marriage. Their conjugal spirituality makes this union possible. This conjugal spirituality isn’t something that happens only on the kneelers but in every aspect of their married life. St. John Paul II’s Rule for a Joy-Filled Marriage | Word on Fire | Edyta McNichol interview with Peter and Theresa Martin

Tucho Tartufe

The beauty of human sexuality is far better expressed in poetry than prose. If in-flight chit-chats and formerly hidden publications are any indication, it seems redundant to state the obvious. But let's be obvious: neither Cardinal Fernandez nor the current Bishop of Rome are poets. Nor, for the record, have they claimed to be.

Cardinal Fernandez, a dissembler in thought and practice, has amply demonstrated he is not capable of celebrating mystery as any Catholic spiritual adept would celebrate mystery. Cardinal Fernandez must consign it to flat pages that are more a mirror of prurience than reverence and awe. Said author has attempted to absolve himself by stating he "certainly would not write [it] now," a statement which should not deter Catholics from expecting (much) better from the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In this age, the human mystery, made in the image and likeness of the Divine Mystery, is routinely misspoken about. The august nature of the Sacrament of Matrimony and its attendant blessings cannot be properly enunciated by many or most members of a generation formed and enamoured in brutalist psychology, art, architecture and literature. Most works in the popular domain are brutalist: deliberately plain, crude or violent; banal and blockish; often compromised by a fear and loathing of mystery.

Attempts to demystify the sacred liturgy in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council were largely the actions of crude lovers - emphasis on crude - whose caricatures of spiritual and liturgical intimacy are to Christian love what pornography is to art. One should probably avoid any book club that is studying Cardinal Fernandez's work as art. Cardinal Fernandez's work is more a gnostic gospel of sex than a Catholic text.

Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart. For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. Psalm 26:2-6

Mystery is a chapel veil, a curtain drawn between the nave and the sanctuary in a temple wherein tawdry behavior is unwelcome. As churches, i.e., liturgists, have replaced sanctuaries that are well-defined spiritual junctions of Heaven and Earth with open-area playpens, many diocesan Catholics have lost a sense of not only the sacred but also the glory of authentic human identity and relationships.

Footnote: Fiducia Supplicans

Cardinal Fernandez is disavowing his prior literary excursions. Is it fair to say, however, that his recent DDF publications continue to manifest a confused and maladjusted character? It is strange that Pope Francis, a successor of Saint Peter, is defending a highly contentious theological avenue identified as an insight without any foundation other than a personal conviction based on a misguided understanding of God's mercy.

As we approach a saturation point of weariness at disconcerting news, let us be reminded that the promise of Jesus to Peter (St Matthew 16:17-19) is manifest throughout the Catholic Church founded by Jesus. Mindful of the fact that Saint Peter's actions merited correction by the Apostle Paul (Galatians 2:11-14) so that any confusion among the faithful would be avoided, our African brethren and many priestly confraternities and other prelates are reminding us that to bless entrenched ignorance and sinful attitudes amounts to tossing pearls before swine. Pigs will be pigs. The fault does not lie with the pigs. Clergy, however, should exercise prudence and not waste wisdom and blessings on obstinate sinners.