Archbishop Diarmuid Martin - another traitor of Christ and of Ireland!

This little man caught in the headlights has just realised that yesterday’s First Reading in the Novus Ordo Missae Lectionary applies to himself: 

"I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them." (Acts 20:29-30).

Following on the heals on Donal McKeown is Diarmuid Martin, another reportedly Catholic Bishop in the once great Catholic nation of Ireland.

Ol' Diarmuid wouldn't dream of telling Catholics how to vote in the matter of marriage between one man and one woman.

Eccles is Saved speculates about Diarmuid's backbone and lackthereof. I think the problem goes much deeper. 

I think he needs a pear, or maybe two.

Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry - You are a liar and a deceiver

How much more must the Catholic faithful take? How can we sit by and not scream out righteous anger at these malefactors?

As you may know, the people of Ireland have a question before them about the definition of marriage. Marriage is between one man and one woman. Period. Men cannot marry men and woman cannot marry woman. Those that have done this in government have corrupted their societies. Those in the Church that attempt to justify it or sanction it are doing the work of Satan. They have lost the faith if they ever had it. Their vocations are false. They are liars and they are deceivers. 

The latest is Bishop Donal McKeown who has used his bully pulpit to spread guilt that those in Ireland who may vote against the re-definition of marriage might do it out of "bigotry" and that we must not "bully."

Instead of speaking the truth to power he lies to the people.

What else has his liar in clerical clothing said? 

Pro-Life groups should stop "screaming over abortion."

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/bishop-urges-prolife-groups-to-stop-screaming-over-abortion-30077353.html

We have a bishop that admonishes the laity on abortion and tells the faithful they can vote positively for sodomite and lesbian "marriage?"

This man is a devil.

The day is coming soon when God the Father will no longer hold back his vengeance upon these rotten and disgraceful wolves who have disguised themselves as shepherds. They are filth. They are putrid. They stink of bile and sodomy. 

Bishop McKeown, resign!

Where is the Pope and why has he not called this man to Rome to remove him from his office?

Irish bishop: Catholics can back gay ‘marriage’ in good conscience

DERRY, Northern Ireland, May 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Despite opposition by the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference to the proposal to change the meaning of marriage in the Constitution of Ireland in the May 22 same-sex "marriage" referendum, an Irish bishop told a radio talk show host that he would "hate" to see people vote against the change "for bigoted, nasty, bullying reasons."

Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown was speaking for the "no" position on the referendum, as supported by the bishops of Ireland, in a debate on the Shaun Doherty Show.

Although he maintained that legalizing same-sex "marriage" would be a "dangerous experiment," especially the ramifications in the lives of children and future generations, he equivocated that people could vote yes or no in the referendum "in good conscience," if they were as informed as possible before voting and were making a "mature decision."

"People have to make their own mature decision, be it yes or be it no. I would hate for people to be voting no for bad reasons, for bigoted reasons, for nasty reasons, for bullying reasons. People have to make up their own minds and I’m quite happy that people can do that in front of God, be it yes or be it no," Bishop McKeown said.

Read the rest here: 

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/irish-bishop-catholics-can-back-gay-marriage-in-good-conscience

Timothy Radcliffe's heresy and vulgarity on his "eucharistic sodomy" is not new - Was Pope Francis aware of it or not?

Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness sent me this link to an article by Randy Engel on St. Peter' Damian's Book of Gomorrah. The original article was published in 2002 in Catholic Family News. Here is the relevant excerpt on Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., just appointed as a Consultor to the Vatican by the Pope. 

The rest of the article along with Part I deserves to be read and studied in its entirely.

As for the Pope and this appointment, we can assume one of the following:

1. In a most charitable way, the Pope knows little English and may no little about what has gone on for a decades with dissident priests outside of Argentina. Someone may have put Radcliffe's name before him and he agreed, in which case he should promptly remove his advisers.
2. The Pope knew exactly who Radcliffe is and this is another along with Msgr. Ricca and the Archbishop in Chile where he does not care about the past in the "who am I to judge" line.
3. The Pope actually supports the view of Radcliffe and is doing it intentionally to change the Church, as his ghostwriter recently said, in which case we have a very big problem.

Is the Bishop of Rome aware that this man referred to sodomy as being "eucharistic?"

http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/articles/damian1.htm

http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/articles/damian2.htm

Homosexuality in Religious Life Today: The Dominican Model 

By way of comparing the views of St. Peter Damian on the vice of sodomy in clerical and monastic ranks with the modern post-Vatican II view on homosexuality, I have selected a Lenten Letter titled, "The Promise of Life," by Father Timothy Radcliffe. [73]  Radcliffe, the Master of the Dominican Order, issued his message on February 25, Ash Wednesday 1998. The English-born aristocrat was elected in 1992 to serve a nine-year term and was residing at the Santa Sabina priory at Rome, when the letter was issued and subsequently posted on the Vatican's web site, which is where I first read it.
In light of the major homosexual scandals that have plagued the priesthood and religious life worldwide, I was interested to see if Father Radcliffe would discuss the issue of homosexuality in Dominican ranks. He did - both directly and indirectly.
The first indirect reference to homosexuality was Radcliffe's quoting of American Dominican and writer Donald Goergen, OP on the subject of celibacy. The quote reads: "Celibacy does not witness to anything. But celibates do. We witness to the Kingdom if we are seen to be people whose chastity liberates us for life." [74]
My first thought when I read the Goergen quote was, why, of all the Dominicans he could have chosen to quote on celibacy, did Radcliffe choose a man whose personal and private life has been distinguished by an open and long-term advocacy and financial support of clerical homosexuality.
Father Goergen, who is currently living with the "Friends of God," a Hindu-styled Dominican Ashram in Kenosha, Wisconsin, began his early claim to infamy with the publication of his book The Sexual Celibate in 1974. [75]
Based on notes from lectures given to Dominican seminarians, Goergen's homosexual apologia speaks of "healthy homosexuality," promotes the homosexual "continuum" theories of the predatory homosexual and bisexual Alfred Kinsey, decries the "disease" of "homophobia," defines homosexuality according to the Gay Manifesto as "the capacity to love someone of the same sex," holds the door open for homosexual 'unions' by stating that, "genital activity should be the expression of a permanent relationship which involves fidelity," states that "so-called traditional Christian attitudes towards homosexuality are beginning to change," claims that "homosexuality can exist in healthy, Christian and graced forms," defends masturbation as being a genital activity that is "not bad, not unhealthy, not harmful, not immoral, even for a celibate," and then gives the sodomical coup de grace by attacking the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. [76]
Goergen's connections to the homosexual network in the Church go back many years. In Rev. Enrique T. Rueda's 1982 classic expose, The Homosexual Network, Goergen gets three dishonorable mentions for his advocacy of homosexuality. [77] He was also an early financial supporter of Communication Ministry, Inc., "an underground 'ministry' for lesbian nuns and gay clergy and religious." [78]
Soon after his election in 1985 as Provincial Superior to the St. Albert the Great Central Province, Goergen, a devotee of Teilhard de Chardin [OLW note: Chardin was condemned by the Church], began his search and destroy operation against many of the faithful and nationally outstanding Dominicans in St. Albert the Great Province including Father Charles Fiore, Father John O'Connor and the traditionalist Dominicans teaching at Fenwick High School. The River Forest Priory was transformed into a homosexual 'safe house' for other clerical perverts. [79]
This action is in stark contrast to the protection the young turk Goergen offered to the notorious Father Matthew "Creation Spirituality" Fox, champion of "lust," "sexual mysticism," and homosexuality as "the first gift of the Cosmic Christ". [80] In 1988, when the Holy See finally insisted that Fox be removed and silenced in order to finally halt the spread of his errors, Fox received an all expense one-year sabbatical during which he continued his heretical tirades. [81] Even after Fox left the Dominican Order and the Church to become an Episcopal 'priest' in California, Goergen continued to defend Fox's heterodox views on faith and morals.
So again I ask, why would Radcliffe quote Goergen on any subject, most especially clerical celibacy?
The answer I believe lies in the second of Goergen's quotes, cited by Radcliffe in "The Promise of Life" in which Goergen espouses the familiar litany of the Left, almost identical to that espoused by Fox:
"If I partake of consumer society, defend capitalism, tolerate machismo, believe that Western society is superior to others, and am sexually abstinent, I am simply witnessing to that for which we stand: capitalism, sexism, Western arrogance, and sexual abstinence. The latter is hardly deeply meaningful and understandably questioned." [82]
For many bishops and religious superiors like Radcliffe, a seminarian's or priest's homosexual activities and advocacy can be overlooked as long as the offending priest adheres to the gospel of Liberalism. It is not until a diocese or religious order is hit with catastrophic lawsuits related to the criminal sex abuse of underage young boys and young men, including seminarians and religious novices, by homosexual clerics, that the former have a second thought about the policy of accepting and ordaining homosexuals to the priesthood and religious life.

Radcliffe on Homosexual Clerics and the Homosexual "Sub-Culture" 

However, in the case of Radcliffe, it appears that the pressure of pederast lawsuits against offending Dominicans worldwide had not yet reached critical mass in 1998. Indeed, in the paragraph titled "Communities of Hope," just preceding his statement on the acceptance of homosexual candidates into the Order, the Master General insists that, "Our communities must be places in which there is no accusation, '... the accuser of our brethren is cast forth ...' "(Apoc. 12.10) [83]  Positioned at it is, just before his support for homosexual candidates and homosexual members of the Order, one might easily interpret his comment as a warning against in-house 'whistle- blowers' who reveal clerical sexual misconduct and criminal acts by their fellow Dominicans to their superiors or to public authorities and law enforcement officers.
Getting to the specific issue of "Community and Sexual Orientation," the Master General begins with the statement that various cultures react differently to "the admission of people of homosexual orientation to religious life," with some holding it to be "virtually unthinkable," while others accept it "without question." [84]
Frankly, outside of ancient cultures that practice certain pagan rites or followed certain gnostic doctrines, I have not run across any peoples that accept "without question" men who unnaturally lust after other men - whatever their role in the community. But even if such a culture existed in modern times, its beliefs should not matter a hill of beans to the universal head of the Dominican Order whose sole concern, one would think, would be what Christ, His Saints (including St. Dominic) and His Church teaches on the matter of homosexuality. And that teaching is clear - from the time of the Apostles - for a man to lust after and desire another man is perverse and acting on that unnatural desire and lust is an abomination in the eyes of God.
In any case, Radcliffe tells his fellow Dominicans not to worry about the matter of sexual orientation. "It is not for us to tell God whom He may or may not call to religious life," he states. And besides, he adds, the General Chapter of Caleruega, after much debate, affirmed that "the same demands of chastity apply to all brethren of whatever sexual orientation, and so no one can be excluded on this ground". [85]
The actual text from the Acts of the General Chapter of Diffinitors of the Order of Friars Preachers meeting from July 17-August 8, 1995 at Caleruega, Spain (the birthplace of St. Dominic) reads:

"Ö as a radical demand, the vow of chastity is equally binding on homosexuals and heterosexuals. Hence, no sexual orientation is a priori incompatible with the call to chastity and the fraternal life." (emphasis added) [86] 

[Note: The above reference to "no sexual orientation" is an extremely sophisticated turn-of- words that leaves the door open for lesbianism, transvestitism, transsexualism, pederasty, pedophilia, sado/masochism and other sexual perversions. The fact that the worldwide Dominican leadership permitted such a statement to be incorporated into an official pronouncement of the Order demonstrates in a concrete manner the degree to which the Dominicans are now controlled by the homosexualists and their minions.]
Radcliffe concludes his segment on "sexual orientation" with words of compassion for his Dominican homosexual brethren, but he warns the emergence "of any subgroups within a community, based on sexual orientation, would be highly divisive," and "threaten the unity of the community," and "make it harder for the brethren to practice the chastity that he has vowed". [87]

Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba apologises but the problem still remains. He is a disgrace as a priest and a bishop!

Crux reporter Inés San Martín reports that Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba is walking back is heretical and filthy statements that St. Mary Magdalene may have been a "lesbian" and one of Our Blessed Lord's apostles was "gay."

The very fact that this Bishop of Jesus Christ, this Shepherd would even think this way to say it in the first place remains a problem. He need not apologise to us but to the Lord and His Saints.

Who formed this man? Who determined that he had a vocation? 

There was a time that the Pope would have called a bishop such as this to Rome and stripped him of his office and exiled him to a monastery and a life of prayer and fasting.

There is no other thing to say Bishop Córdoba, you are disgrace to the Catholic priesthood and to the episcopacy.

Please review Canon 401 §2 and avail yourself of it without further delay.

Pope Francis appoints "gay sex" advocate Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. to Pontifical Council

It seems that one cannot even take a break from gardening and then one makes the mistake of turning on a computer to find what? Oh, just more evidence that the Church is in its greatest crisis since the Protestant Revolution and this time it emanates from the very top. I should have gone for that nap sooner!

Truly the Pope has lost it.

If it's not some bishop musing that our beloved Saint Mary Magdalene may have been a lesbian it's a bishop writing books on tonsil hockey.

Can there be any doubt now that the sodomite mafia has taken complete control over Jorge Bergoglio the Bishop of Rome?

Who is Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.?

Well, Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., was once interviewed by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB at Canada's Salt + Light Television, Our Catholic Channel of Hope. You will begin to get the picture on his theology by losing the twenty-two minutes and twenty-two seconds which you'll never get back from watching it. 

You can also find out about this wayward Dominican at Protect the Pope wherein you will find that this Dominican is a dissenter on the Church's teaching on a number of areas involving homosexual behaviour. Here we have a report on his appearance at the 2014 Divine Mercy Conference as reported by Protect the Pope and copied below in the event that something mysterious happens with that blog and we maintain the original bolding:

Let's take a little look, shall we?:

* * * 

A selection of Fr Radcliffe’s writings expressing dissent from the Church’s teaching:

Fr Radcliffe gave the following contribution to the Church of England ‘s review of homosexuality and gay marriage:

Fr Radcliffe OP expands the meaning of fertility to include gay sex

But not every marriage is fertile in this way. We must avoid having a mechanistic or simplistic understanding of fertility. Jesus speaks a fertile word: This is my body, given for you. He is God’s fertile word. And surely it is in the kind and healing words that we offer each other that we all share in fertility of that most intimate moment. When Jesus met Peter on the shore after Easter, he offers him a word that renews their relationship. Three times he asks him; ‘Do you love me more than these others?’ He allows him to undo his threefold denial. Sexual fertility cannot be separated from the exchange of words that heal, that recreate and set free.

How does all of this bear on the question of gay sexuality? We cannot begin with the question of whether it is permitted or forbidden! We must ask what it means, and how far it is Eucharistic. Certainly it can be generous, vulnerable, tender, mutual and non-violent. So in many ways, I would think that it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift.

We can also see how it can be expressive of mutual fidelity, a covenantal relationship in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever. But the proposed legislation for ‘gay marriage’ imply that it is not understood to be inherently unitive, a becoming one flesh. [...]

And what about fertility? I have suggested that one should not stick to a crude, mechanistic understanding of fertility. Biological fertility is inseparable from the fertility of our mutual tenderness and compassion. And so that might seem to remove one objection to gay marriage. I am not entirely convinced, since it seems to me that our tradition is incarnational, the word becoming bodily flesh. And some heterosexual relationships may be accidentally infertile in this sense, but homosexual ones are intrinsically so.

Sexual ethics is about what our acts say. And I have the impression that we are not very sure of what gay sexual acts signify. Maybe we need to ask gay Christians who have been living in committed relationships for years. I suspect that sex will turn out to be rather unimportant.’

Fr Radcliffe on Holy Communion for Catholics who are divorced and re-married:

I would conclude with two profound hopes. That a way will be found to welcome divorced and remarried people back to communion. And, most important, that women will be given real authority and voice in the church. The pope expresses his desire that this may happen, but what concrete form can it take? He believes that the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood is not possible, but decision-making in the church has become ever more closely linked to ordination in recent years. Can that bond be loosened? Let us hope that women may be ordained to the diaconate and so have a place in preaching at the Eucharist. What other ways can authority be shared?’

* * * 

The Catholic Herald has a collection of articles about Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. You will have not difficulty finding out more by doing some searching.

Running a Google search with his name "homosexuality" in the search brings up lots of fodder.

This is a disgrace right from the top, right from the Pope himself.


 

Pope names Fr. Timothy Radcliff consultor for Council for Justice, Peace

Pope Francis - ANSA

16/05/2015 16:08

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis has named Fr. Timothy Radcliff OP a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. 

Ordained in 1971, Fr Timothy is a long-time friend and contributor to Vatican Radio’s English Service.  He is a well-known preacher and speaker, and author of  several books including  What is the point of being a Christian?  He served as Master of the Dominican Order from 1992 until 2001 and is now resident at the Dominican Priory at Blackfriars, Oxford (U.K.).  He has been a member of the Las Casas Advisory Board and Director of the Institute.   He is an Honorary Doctor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.

Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba of Fontibón -- calls an Apostle "gay" and St. Mary Magdalene a "lesbian"

When you think about it, this is all good. The more these heretical and warped priests, bishops and cardinals show their hands the better. Their arrogance and pride blind them. They do not realise that there are no more secrets. They cannot hide anymore.

The rot of the sodomite infiltration into the hierarchy of the Holy Catholic Church is being revealed right before our eyes. It defies logic that someone would take the position that this man does and not be one.

What will Jorge Bergoglio, Bishop or Rome do about this man?

Columbian bishop floates idea of gay apostle, lesbian Mary Magdalene

Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba of Fontibón says "no one chooses to be gay or straight" 

By Inés San Martín

Vatican correspondent May 15, 2015

ROME — A Colombian bishop, insisting that being homosexual is not a sin, said Thursday it’s possible that one of the twelve apostles of Jesus was gay or that Mary Magdalene, another key New Testament figure, was a lesbian.

Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba of Fontibón, Colombia, also said the Catholic Church does not oppose same-sex couples making a life together, but does not consider such arrangements to be a marriage or a family.

Read the rest at: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/05/15/colombian-bishop-floats-idea-of-gay-apostle-lesbian-mary-magdalene-says-no-one-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/

The Francis Effect and what has gone wrong - Father Linus Clovis

Father Linus F. Clovis is a priest of the Archdiocese of Castries, St. Lucia in the West Indies.  He studied for the priesthood at the Angelicum in Rome and was ordained in 1983 by Blessed Pope John Paul II. He spoke last week at a forum for ProLife leaders in Rome. 

It can be found on Gloria TV http://gloria.tv/media/CG5Dyd1WWLg and Steve Skojec has transcribed some of the main points.

Father gives a clear assessment of the current situation. It is profound and lays out for the hearer. His clarity is refreshing, his honesty is shocking.

Let me give you a few examples:

“When a bishop — a Catholic bishop — can applaud sin publicly, it causes us to tremble. But this is essentially the ‘Francis Effect.’ It’s disarming bishops and priests, especially after the Holy Father said, ‘Who am I to judge?’ I as a priest say Mass, preaching, and I make a judgment about a sin, one breaking the ten commandments, I would be condemned for judging. I would be accused of being ‘more Catholic than the pope’. There used to be a saying — rhetorical — ‘is the pope Catholic?’ That’s no longer funny.” (in reference to Dolan’s “Bravo!” comments regarding the coming out of football player Michael Sam.) 

“Obedience is owed to the pope, but the pope owes obedience to the word and the apostolic tradition. We have to obey the pope, but the pope himself must obey the written word. He must obey the tradition. He must respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Obedience is owed to the pope, but it is the duty of the pope to give the character of possibility to this obedience. The pope has to facilitate our obeying him, by himself being obedient to the Word of God. Pope Felix III told us, ‘an error that is not resisted is approved. A truth that is not defended is suppressed.’ So we have an obligation to resist error, and we must do everything that we can to promote the truth.”

Please visit OnePeterFive for the rest of the transcript.

Incredible!

Pope Francis; you're becoming known by the friends you keep!

Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez : Theologian, Environmental Scientist and Expert in the oral arts!

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we try to deceive. One might objectively ask, is the deception intentional, or is the Pope just oblivious to the mess he has created by the men with whom he has chosen as confidants? This papacy has become a joke.

We have the discredited pervert protector in Belgium, Cardinal Danneels, we have the German Kasper who wants to defame the Holy Eucharist through some false idea of mercy, there is the Barros in Chile, who allegedly witnessed sodomite rape of three boys, can it get better?

Yesterday, we had the report of Maradiaga, who should be paying more attention to the slums and suffering in his own country of Honduras instead of lecturing me and you about the false flag of global-warming and climate change state that opponents are nothing more than greedy capitalists.

Now, if the pope has a ghost-writer for an apostolic exhortation or an encyclical why the heck should I pay any attention to it. I expect the pope to write it himself. Am I to believe that that the philosophical depth of John Paul II's work and intellectual vigour of Benedict XVI's were written by plebeians? Well, not so with Pope Bergoglio. He has a ghost-writer for that Lutheran Lite document known as Evangelii Gaudium. Do you know who he was? The same scientific-expert, ghost-writer of the upcoming Al Gore Encyclical!

And about that upcoming encyclical?

The Pope can only bind Catholics on matters of "faith and morals." His Encyclical will be a dead-letter when it comes to the faith and for me, I will burn a copy to incense the air and cause a little more pollution. We can ignore it as baseless and not binding on Catholics. It is drivel out of the competence of Pope Bergoglio and now that is proven.

Want something more?

The writer of that apostolic exhortation and this encyclical is an expert in kissing through interviews of course, not personal experience.

What kind of priest interviews people about their kissing? I'm not prude or puritan, the Fox and Vox enjoy kissing very much but I'm certainly not going to discuss it with my priest. What kind of priest takes delight in interviewing people about their kissing?

What kind of Pope brings this kind of man into his inner circle?

Tell us Archbishop. Same-sex or opposite sex kissing?

How the hell would you know? 

Trusted theologian says Francis is stronger than adversaries inside the curia

Robert Mickens, Rome

The theologian widely acknowledged as the principal ghostwriter of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, says the Jesuit pontiff has already begun changing the Church in ways that cannot be reversed.

Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University of Argentina, said that, even if the pope’s adversaries tried to turn back the clock in the next pontificate, the People of God would not stand for it.

“The people are with (Francis) and not with his few adversaries,” he said in an exclusive published Sunday in the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera.

The 52-year-old Fernandez is one of the pope’s principal theological advisers. Francis, who had to fight Vatican opposition to name his fellow countryman university rector in 2009, appointed the theologian titular archbishop only two months after he became pope.

The archbishop said the 78-year-old Jesuit pope is patiently laying the groundwork for reforms that cannot be undone. 

“No, there’s no turning back,” he told the paper’s highly respected political analyst, Massimo Franco.

“If and when Francis is no longer pope, his legacy will remain strong,” the archbishop said.

“For example, the pope is convinced that the things he’s already written or said cannot be condemned as an error. Therefore, in the future anyone can repeat those things without fear of being sanctioned,” he added.

Archbishop Fernandez is one of the leading theological aides to the pope, who last year was appointed to a special commission inside the Synod of Bishops.

Below is our English translation of the bulk of his interview in the May 10 edition of Corriere della Sera.

*********

Archbishop Fernandez, in the two years since the pontificate began has resistance to the pope inside the Vatican increased or diminished?

“I don’t live in Rome and I can only talk about what I see when I go there. You have to make distinctions. I saw that some people in Rome were shocked at first, but now they understand the meaning of what Francis is calling for and they’re happy to be part of this path (he’s set out) for the Church, and they are helping the pope. Others tend to say: we’ll do what we can, go along with him as long as he’s here, because in the end he’s the pope. This group seems to be in the majority, even though I can’t confirm that. Others — really just a few — are, instead, going their own way. And from what one can see, they tend to ignore Francis’ teachings.”

Could you give us an example?

“I’ve read that some people say the Roman Curia is an essential part of the Church’s mission, or that a Vatican prefect is the sure compass that prevents the Church from falling into ‘light’ thought; or that this prefect ensures the unity of the faith and guarantees a serious theology for the pope. But Catholics, reading the Gospel, know that Christ assured special guidance and enlightenment for the pope and bishops all together, but not for a prefect or another structure. When you hear such things it almost seems as if the pope were their representative, or was someone who came to cause trouble and needs to be controlled.”

It doesn’t seem like that’s a line that’s being followed, though.

“It’s not, because most of the People of God love Francis. Maybe the council of nine cardinals could help to better clarify how far the jurisdiction of the most important prefects extends. But the thing that worries me most is that theologians are not offering new analyses on the Church, the theological reasons for its structures, the jurisdiction of national and regional episcopal conferences and the proper place of the Roman Curia in relation to the pope and the College of Bishops.

Some say Francis is isolated. Do you think that’s true?

“Not at all. The people are with him and not with his few adversaries. This pope first filled St. Peter’s Square with crowds and then began changing the Church. Above all, for this reason he is not isolated. The people sense in him the fragrance of the Gospel, the joy of the Spirit, the closeness of Christ and thus they feel the Church is like their home. But I would also say that he has a wide circle of people from whom he asks advice on various issues. He listens to more people than just those in the dicasteries of the curia, and in this way he is closer to the different voices in the Church and in society. I’m referring to those people he receives at Casa Santa Marta, to the requests that arrive in letters, to the encounters in the squares. It’s exactly for this reason that today the Church is listened to more in the international debates and world leaders look at her with great respect.”

No doubt, and in a deep and clear way, especially at the beginning. And yet, more recently, there’s a certain anxiety. Thing are proceeding more slowly. The reform of the curia seems to be stalled.

“The pope goes slow because he wants to be sure that the changes have a deep impact. The slow pace is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the changes. He knows there are those hoping that the next pope will be turn everything back around. If you go slowly it’s more difficult to turn things back. He makes this clear when he says ‘time is greater than space.’”

When Francis says he will have a short pontificate doesn’t this help his adversaries?

“The pope must have his reasons, because he knows very well what he’s doing. He must have an objective that we don’t understand yet. You have to realize that he is aiming at a reform that is irreversible. If one day he should intuit that he’s running out of time and he doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up.”

Would it be possible to have a pope without Vatican or away from the Vatican?

“The Roman Curia is not an essential structure. The pope could even go and live away from Rome, have a dicastery in Rome and another one in Bogota, and perhaps link-up by teleconference with liturgical experts that live in Germany. Gathered around the pope, in a theological sense, is the College of Bishops in order to serve the people.”

Aren’t you worried that his pontificate will quickly be tossed aside after he’s no longer pope?

“No, there’s no turning back. If and when Francis is no longer pope, his legacy will remain strong. For example, the pope is convinced that the things he’s already written or said cannot be condemned as an error. Therefore, in the future anyone can repeat those things without fear of being sanctioned. And then the majority of the People of God with their special sense will not easily accept turning back on certain things.”

Don’t you see the risk of “two Churches”?

“No. There’s a schism when a group of important people share the same sensibilities that reflect those of a vast section of society. Luther and Protestantism came about that way. But now the overwhelming majority of the people are with Francis and they love him. His opponents are weaker than what you think. Not pleasing everyone does not mean provoking a schism.”

Isn’t this idea of the pope having a direct rapport with the people something risky, while the Church’s ecclesiastical class feels marginalized?

“But the Church is the People of God guided by their pastors. Cardinals could disappear, in the sense that they are not essential. The pope and the bishops are essential. Then again, it is impossible that everything a pope does and says will please everyone. Did everyone like Benedict XVI? Unity does not depend on unanimity.

Do you think a conclave would re-elect Francis today?

“I don’t know, possibly not. But it happened, and everything one could image before or after the conclave is not important. The only thing that matters and that’s important is that the voting is done in the conclave, with the special assistance of the Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit guides the conclave and you cannot contradict the Holy Spirit. If some (cardinals) now have regrets it doesn’t change anything.”

Do you think Francis could be forced to leave Casa Santa Marta for security reasons, because of a terrorist attack by Islamic fundamentalists?

“He doesn’t think like that. And I haven’t found any decisive arguments for that to happen. Then again, I think those that organize these big attacks have a certain intelligence and are able to distinguish between the United States of Bush and the Vatican. Certainly, there could be an isolated fanatic … No, I think Francis will remain at Casa Santa Marta, strong and with great confidence.