McCarrick Report

[Peace]

22 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

For sure, but that's not what I'm talking about happening with Fr. Martin. When Fr. Martin is asked if he assents to the Church's teaching on homosexual acts, he answers by saying "the official Church teaching is they are not kosher."

This statement can get him in 0% "official" trouble, and when people are frustrated by this non answer, he can complain they are being unreasonable and demanding. Then there is another constituency, the gay-acts-are-okay group, who can hear Fr. Martin's words and say, "ah there is an official Church teaching on gay sex acts, but specifying this way implies there is also an unofficial one, perhaps more to my liking."

I have no idea who Fr. Martin is by way of background.

But people are gonna do whatever they are gonna do anyway. If you know what the official teaching of the Church is, but you choose to do the opposite anyway, that's on you. If not Fr. Martin, the same folks would be pulling out some obscure passage of the Bible and stating "You see, gay marriage totally fine." Is the Bible at fault because it states the truth? I don't see how you really put the blame with Fr. Martin if he is teaching people the true doctrine of the Church.

Now, if the good priest is telling people that the official teaching of the Church is XYZ, but is then suggesting to people that they are totally free to ignore it and just do whatever they want, then that would be another thing, I think. Has he done this?

22 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

Imo this is the effect Fr. Martin means to have. I don't think there is an internal conflict he is being discreet about. Can't be sure, because when stakes are high, you cannot know if a Jesuit will say what they mean or instead mess with you in some way. 

OK, fair enough. If he means to suggest that people are free to ignore the teaching, then I would not like that.

22 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

But its a Jesuit idea that there is an official Church teaching, which is overridden by teaching produced by your personal discernment of how that teaching impacts your life.

I will give you an example. Fr. Martin was an advisor on the movie "Silence" which is about Jesuit missionaries in Japan. At one point one of the priest characters hears the voice of "Christ" telling him to apostatize - symbolized by stepping on an image of Jesus - and in obedience to "Christ", does so. Fr Martin explained in a column in America magazine, how a Jesuit could possibly "discern" whether to commit blasphemy and conclude it is the right thing to do: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/01/18/fr-james-martin-answers-5-common-questions-about-silence

In case it isn't clear to anyone reading, this is 1000% garbage. If you "discern" a call to apostatize and hear Jesus audibly telling you to commit blasphemy, we know on an objective level that your discernment is wrong; your discernment is probably being led by the devil himself.  But Fr. Martin sees this as a legitimate outcome of good discernment, and that is just one example of how  deeply deformed and mutated Jesuit spirituality has become in this, the first half of the 21st century.  And that deformation applies to the doctrine of "mental reservation" as well, as it is currently practiced.

Am I fan of so many of our leaders being masters of double speak - no. But I should point out 'vatican types' are as a rule good at it, whether they are Jesuits or not. I recall the archbishop of St Louis testifying that "I'm not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” referring to adults having sex with children.

OK. This is where it gets complicated for me. Perhaps I do have a part of the "Jesuit" spirit in me that apparently is the disdain of Phatmass.

We have certain things that are intrinsically evil. They cannot be done under any circumstances. You can't have a "personal discernment" of Church teaching that causes you to go out and rape an infant. So at least as a general principle I would agree with you that certain things cannot be legitimately discerned.

But on the other hand we do have this idea of conscience. Not everything is always so black and white. For example, we know what the current teaching of the Church is with respect to the death penalty (either the JP2 version or the updated PF version). There are plenty of folks ( @KnightofChrist @fides' Jack ) around here who flat out reject both the JP2 version and the PF version). If we wanted to be all rule-bound and black-and-white we would say that they disagree with the current teaching of the Church, with their superiors, and charge them to the game. But I can cut them some slack because they are following their own conscience and making their own discernment of what the proper teaching is, as far as they see it. Is that different? Are they wrong for not just being all black and white "The Catechism says XYZ" take it or leave it?

Now, if we are looking at an issue like blasphemy, sure, we all know what the black-and-white rule is. If someone shows us a picture of Jesus, we are not supposed to step on it. If someone tells us to deny that Jesus is God, best not to do it. That is an evil thing to do, obviously.

But let's say a Muslim terrorists captures all of the members of Phatmass, pulls out the long-sword and starts slowly cutting off our heads unless we state "Jesus is not God." Let's keep it real here folks, once he starts hitting some arteries, 99% of us are going to say it, under that type of duress.

But even taking the duress aspect out of it, the question there would be, if you say it under those circumstances, have you really blasphemed? Does God really prefer for every single person on the planet Earth to march to his death in that situation? Leaving our children parentless, and our dogs without the daily provision of Kibbles and Bits? Perhaps God would want every person to march to his death in that situation - but I think it is legit for the Christian at least to be able to ask "God is this what you want of me" instead of just saying "Well the rulebook says XYZ so off with my head."

Now, I did find that part of the movie where Jesus appeared out of nowhere and was all like "Go ahead, step on me" to be a bit fantastical. Honestly I can't really see that happening either, just to be clear. Certainly, I think based on what we see in Sacred Scripture, and based on what the Church teaches, I would have confidence that Jesus would not be like "Go ahead, step on me" but if we find ourselves in that situation, I think that there is some room for the Christian to at least try to discern like "Does God truly desire me to martyr myself in this situation?" We all think that we know what the answer would be, but do we really unless we ask the question?

Also, unless you actually ask the question and attempt to discern God's will in particular situations, how are we not just following rules like a pharisee or a robot? Are we gonna be like the Jews who were all like "the law states that we have to stone this woman to death, let's stone away" but then Jesus comes along and is like "Yeah why don't we just set that aside for today?"

Just some food for thought I guess.

[HumilityAndPatience]

22 hours ago, Anastasia said:

The natural feeling of a heart then is being removed and swapped by a cold logical reasoning "Nazis have no rights to know so I can lie". Then this new paradigm "if one has no right to know I can lie" is applied to other situations to which, if they were evaluated by a heart (feeling) would not permit a lie.  Like "lying for keeping the Church together" is only convincing if one does not feel in his heart that he cannot lie about the Church = to lie about the Body Christ, the Truth, to keep that Body together because if one injects a lie into that Body he will poison it. But this can be only felt with a heart sensitive to a lie and Truth ("Everyone who is of the Truth hears My voice.").

I think you have it the wrong way around, if I am reading correctly.

Cold logical legalism = "lying" is always a mortal sin

Reason informed by the heart = can "lie" when prudential judgement dictates

Newman covers this in his Apologia. In other words, we are not to judge whether a man's lie is prudential or not. It is for Christ to judge. And indeed, it might have been prudent to use Pope Francis' wording, assuming it was a "lie" in the first place...

21 hours ago, Anastasia said:

It does not work because they do not seek the will of God, they seek their own will.

This is a leaping statement to make...

21 hours ago, Anastasia said:

It is easy to see I think: if some priest abuses children he, apart from harming others, is blaspheming every time he celebrates Mass. Hence, if his superior keenly feels God above himself he will immediately act in a way to purge the Church from such an awfulness, for God’s sake and for victim’s sake. He will feel that if he does not, he joins in spitting on God. The most important is to purge the Church from the rot, not to cover the rot

You are definitively assuming PF's heart/knowledge on the matter when it is certainly not clear.

[Peace]

16 minutes ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

This is a leaping statement to make...

You are definitively assuming PF's heart/knowledge on the matter when it is certainly not clear.

Yeah I thought that was quite comical considering how bent out of shape she got when I accused her of lying.

[Lilllabettt]

3 hours ago, Peace said:

I have no idea who Fr. Martin is by way of background.

Fr. Martin is most famous recently for his outreach to the gay community. He wrote a book called "building bridges." His work is sorely needed. Unfortunately he is one who seems almost gleeful in discovering the different ways he can walk right up to the line and leave everyone guessing if he has crossed over it.  The fact that faithful people are confused and troubled by what he says and those on the peripheries find confirmation for their rejection of the Gospel in what he says - are not problems he thinks important enough to correct.

I'm glad you acknowledge there are such things as intrinsic evil. Blasphemy and apostasy are 2 of those things. ( Clerics Obfuscating about sexual misconduct, i could put in that category, at this piont. ) In the movie, Silence, lay people are shown staying strong in the face of torture, and I think the movie as a whole is a commentary on the wisdom courage and strength of "simple" Christians vs intellectualized and ultimately weaker Jesuits.

1 hour ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

I think you have it the wrong way around, if I am reading correctly.

Cold logical legalism = "lying" is always a mortal sin

Reason informed by the heart = can "lie" when prudential judgement dictates

Newman covers this in his Apologia. In other words, we are not to judge whether a man's lie is prudential or not. It is for Christ to judge. And indeed, it might have been prudent to use Pope Francis' wording, assuming it was a "lie" in the first place...

This is a leaping statement to make...

You are definitively assuming PF's heart/knowledge on the matter when it is certainly not clear.

Nope nope nope. It is never acceptable for clerical authority to lie to the faithful, play games, tell half truths, engage that Jesuit formation to dodge and weave, or confuse about whether they know and when they knew about sexual misconduct in the external forum. That's called clericalism. It's abusive. If this is prudential judgment, then his judgment is BAD.

https://www.simchafisher.com/2018/09/07/does-francis-know-he-sounds-like-an-abuser/

Just imagine if PF was a lay principal and parents asked if he knew about sexual misconduct by a teacher. And he told them  "investigate it yourself". And he says a year later "I knew nothing" and then later it comes out, he did know the teacher had a reputation and that there were allegations (not publicly known). Would we be tolerant of the ambiguity, the "mistakes". I mean come on. Oh he's a priest? He's the Pope? We have to give him the benefit of the doubt - to the extent he can pee on us and we have to believe him when he says its raining?

The catholic tradition around avoiding detraction and gossip, not judging hearts and knowledge is very beautiful and unfortunately easily deformed, manipulated and abused. The same way 'mental reservation' and the role of discernment in moral theology have been deformed and abused by people who confuse their reputation with God's and PR with the mission of the Church. The pearl clutching about rash judgment in this area is all, as PF says, solemn nonsense. 

Lets do what the NY Times does and say falsehood instead of lie, since that's less emotional a word. When PF gave an interview saying he said "several times" previously that he "knew nothing" about McCarrick, that was a falsehood.  When PF claimed, repeatedly in that same interview, that he knew nothing about McCarrick, or else he wouldn't have stayed silent, that was a falsehood. We know from the report - written by those PF can fire on a whim -  that he knew about McCarrick's reputation and the allegations against him.

Lets say as Peace said, it was a "mistake." PF has made so many "mistakes" around sex abuse. These all have been made 10 years AFTER the reckoning of the early 2000s. There is NO excuse for these guys not to get it by now. Unless they are defective in some aspect of human or spiritual formation (Jesuits often are.) In which case the Pope job is not for them.  You can't play paddy cake around clerical sex abuse. Enough is enough.

You know I don't actually want the Pope to resign. I think its a trend that's bad for the Church, and just makes the Vatican more political. You know over the years I spent a lot of difficult hours late at night, wringing my hands, studying, working to understand the things he says and does, find ways to give the benefit of the doubt, construct an adequate defense in my own mind, overlook the unpleasant aspects of his personality, the habit of insulting faceless "others", the bad temper, the way of speaking and writing impenetrable gobbledy gook (JP2 had this as well. St Paul as well lol!!!! )  Over and over again, I've been shown that PF feels no sense of obligation or responsibility to pastor people like myself. He has other priorities. the environment and refugees, as my archbishop said when the McCarrick scandal first broke wide open. It's enough for me ... I'm done! Trust is earned.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Lilllabettt

[Peace]

8 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Fr. Martin is most famous recently for his outreach to the gay community. He wrote a book called "building bridges." His work is sorely needed. Unfortunately he is one who seems almost gleeful in discovering the different ways he can walk right up to the line and leave everyone guessing if he has crossed over it.  The fact that faithful people are confused and troubled by what he says and those on the peripheries find confirmation for their rejection of the Gospel in what he says - are not problems he thinks important enough to correct.

With respect to the homosexuality issue, how has he crossed the line, or "come close to the line"? I think that is pretty subjective. If PF comes out and says "Gay people should not be kicked out of their own families" folks are gonna come out (as they have recently) and say that this PF tacitly endorsing homosexual activity, even though that interpretation of the statement was patently absurd.

What I am saying is that I'll take this McCarrick report with a grain of salt. But I am also gonna take statements like yours above with a grain of salt too.

But you could be right. As always, "show me the money."

8 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

I'm glad you acknowledge there are such things as intrinsic evil. Blasphemy and apostasy are 2 of those things.

You know I really hate it when you correct me like that. Yeah, it's true. That is what the Catechism states. Nevertheless, the law said stone the adulteress to death, until the Lord came along and said otherwise. How that applies to stepping on a photo when a sword is making it's way through your jugular - well hopefully I'll never have to find out.

8 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

In the movie, Silence, lay people are shown staying strong in the face of torture, and I think the movie as a whole is a commentary on the wisdom courage and strength of "simple" Christians vs intellectualized and ultimately weaker Jesuits.

LOL. You really hate Jesuits. Admit the truth! What happened? Your ex-boyfriend dumped you and became a Jesuit, didn't he?

Nah I don't think that was the point of the movie at all. The vast majority of the "simple" Christians stepped on the photo you know. There were a few hardcore ones, the ones who died in the water I think. Actually I think there is a monument to them in Japan. I saw it when I lived there.

But the Jesuits in the movie were tortured like crazy. Let's keep it real they held out for longer than 99% of Phatmass would. They weren't just some intellectual soy boy punks, either. I mean, these guys walked into the situation basically knowing that it was going to be death. I think the main character only gave up when they started to torture other people, instead of torturing the guy himself.

I thought the main theme of the movie was a reflection on the supposed "absence" of God. Like, where is he, or why does he appear to remain silent in the times when we need him most? I think most Christians have experienced that feeling at some time, on some level.

The whole part about the guy apostatizing at the end while still having a little cross tucked away in his robe, to be found only at his death,  was just some cornball Hollywood ish I thought.

[HumilityAndPatience]

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

Nope nope nope.

St Augustine gives the example of a just man hiding in your house with murderers abound- is one permitted to lie when they come knocking? This is not a simple question. There is a rich history of debate amongst doctors of the church and there is room for prudence.

 

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

And he says a year later "I knew nothing" and then later it comes out, he did know the teacher had a reputation and that there were allegations (not publicly known).

It should be implicit that PF knew of the allegations and history. "I knew nothing" should be taken to mean that there was no definitive judgement made until that point. It should be viewed as an obvious truism that PF knew of the allegations. Occam's razor applies here. Simple explanation is that PF continued the line of thought on this matter as per his predecessors and "knew nothing" concrete on the matter of Mccarrick

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

It's enough for me ... I'm done! Trust is earned.

Do you agree with Vigano that Vatican 2 should be dropped and forgotten as well? And that Pope Francis must resign? 

Edited November 13, 2020 by HumilityAndPatience

[Lilllabettt]

29 minutes ago, Peace said:

With respect to the homosexuality issue, how has he crossed the line, or "come close to the line"? I think that is pretty subjective. If PF comes out and says "Gay people should not be kicked out of their own families" folks are gonna come out (as they have recently) and say that this PF tacitly endorsing homosexual activity, even though that interpretation of the statement was patently absurd.

What I am saying is that I'll take this McCarrick report with a grain of salt. But I am also gonna take statements like yours above with a grain of salt too.

But you could be right. As always, "show me the money."

You know I really hate it when you correct me like that. Yeah, it's true. That is what the Catechism states. Nevertheless, the law said stone the adulteress to death, until the Lord came along and said otherwise. How that applies to stepping on a photo when a sword is making it's way through your jugular - well hopefully I'll never have to find out.

LOL. You really hate Jesuits. Admit the truth! What happened? Your ex-boyfriend dumped you and became a Jesuit, didn't he?

Nah I don't think that was the point of the movie at all. The vast majority of the "simple" Christians stepped on the photo you know. There were a few hardcore ones, the ones who died in the water I think. Actually I think there is a monument to them in Japan. I saw it when I lived there.

But the Jesuits in the movie were tortured like crazy. Let's keep it real they held out for longer than 99% of Phatmass would. They weren't just some intellectual soy boy punks, either. I mean, these guys walked into the situation basically knowing that it was going to be death. I think the main character only gave up when they started to torture other people, instead of torturing the guy himself.

I thought the main theme of the movie was a reflection on the supposed "absence" of God. Like, where is he, or why does he appear to remain silent in the times when we need him most? I think most Christians have experienced that feeling at some time, on some level.

The whole part about the guy apostatizing at the end while still having a little cross tucked away in his robe, to be found only at his death,  was just some cornball Hollywood ish I thought.

Well, if you listen to fr. Martin, the real linchpin in the priest's decision to apostatize was his obedience to "Jesus." That "Jesus" told him to apostatize, was really the thing that finally broke him as far as doing it. And he didn't "break down" as far as losing his nerve, he simply obediently followed his discernment.

If I was going to be a martyr they would have to kill me quick. I doubt God would send to hell, or even punish much if at all, someone who apostatizes in the face of torture or the death of others. That situation pretty much tosses out the deliberate and complete consent peg on the mortal sin stool.

However the troubling part is the thesis that this is good discernment and the "Right" decision, ever. In the early Church people who did this would be excommunicated for 7+ years, required to publicly confess and do hard penance before being re-admitted to communion. It's definitely the wrong choice to apostatize even though God understands human weakness.  Just like dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do, and no amount of compassion and understanding for people weary of war can ever turn that decision into good discernment.   But my point in bringing up the movie and Fr. Martin was to illustrate a thing that is prevalent in Jesuit spirituality - the idea that personal discernment is the pinnacle of moral theology, and there really is no objective yard stick of good or bad discernment. If blasphemy can be considered good discernment than any other sort of behavior can also be good discernment. Fudging on what you knew about sexual misconduct, for the "Good of the Church" can be good discernment.

Im not a fan of the Jesuits because they are responsible for a lot of suffering (related to sex abuse particularly) in the world, and the deformation of this aspect of their charism (mental reservation discernment etc) is huge obstacle to healing, worldwide.  Also, when someone plays semantic games, and you know they are playing, and they know you know they are playing, there's a limit you know.  It gets to be too cute. You dont have to be a crashing gong or clanging cymbal but some light percussion would be nice. 

[Lilllabettt]

14 minutes ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

St Augustine gives the example of a just man hiding in your house with murderers abound- is one permitted to lie when they come knocking?

Sorry but this isn't relevant. McCarrick is not a just man and journalists asking the Pope what he knew and when about McCarrick's predation are not "murderers." If someone makes the prudential judgment that silence is appropriate in that situation then their prudential judgment is BAD.

16 minutes ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

"I knew nothing" should be taken to mean that there was no definitive judgement made until that point.

Sorry but that's jesuitical. I didn't KNOW anything. I knew but I didn't KNOW. Give me a break.

 

18 minutes ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

Do you agree with Vigano that Vatican 2 should be dropped and forgotten as well? And that Pope Francis must resign? 

Makes me think you don't read what I write here.  I wrote I don't want the pope to resign, as its a bad trend for the church. will just lead to more political "campaigns" in the Vatican and worldliness instead of holiness.  However I don't see how things will get better unless PF has a major mindset adjustment in how he sees his job and the world. He is 80 years old, with God all things are possible. I pray God works a miracle. But he has had these habits for a long time. He is not popular in Argentina, for reasons. He didn't just start making these "mistakes" and not feeling like he has to clarify or explain himself.

And no, I am not a trad - not even an "extraordinary form" trad. They have taste, but too many of the people in the movement, Vigano included, are cranks. unpleasant to associate with. Wouldn't want the cray to rub off you know. (their cray on me in case thats not clear lol)

[HumilityAndPatience]

5 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Sorry but this isn't relevant. McCarrick is not a just man and journalists asking the Pope what he knew and when about McCarrick's predation are not "murderers." If someone makes the prudential judgment that silence is appropriate in that situation then their prudential judgment is BAD.

The example is to show the possibility for a lie to be a just action. I'm not proposing that the scenario be applied to Mccarrick's handling. But if it were, then the "just man" would be the reputation of the Church (not McCarrick), for example. And the murderers would be those who wish to slander the Church and her clergy. 

9 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Makes me think you don't read what I write here.

I did- and if seemed as if you were unsure, hence my questions (in charity)

[Peace]

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Well, if you listen to fr. Martin, the real linchpin in the priest's decision to apostatize was his obedience to "Jesus." That "Jesus" told him to apostatize, was really the thing that finally broke him as far as doing it. And he didn't "break down" as far as losing his nerve, he simply obediently followed his discernment.

But here is the thing. What if you were in that situation and our Lord really did say to you "Lillabettt. I want you to step on my figure."

What would you do? Would you step on it, or would you be on some intellectual "No, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church states at paragraph 1208 that blasphemy is an intrinsic evil"?

I think that you would step on it, if that is what God told you to do, correct?

Now, you are probably right in that from what we know, God would never say such a thing in that situation (although I can't say that I have 100% absolute confidence in that conclusion). But that's not the hypothetical. The hypothetical is that God actually said it. From that standpoint, the Jesuits would be correct, would they not? It's not like you would pull out your Catechism and be like "No, Lord . . ."

Sure, there are all of these questions about whether the discernment is valid, whether the person is merely just trying to justify his actions under the pretense of discernment, or if he has been deceived, and so forth. But that is a bit beside the main point I think - that there is a legit role for discernment that goes beyond just a black and white following of code like a computer.

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

However the troubling part is the thesis that this is good discernment and the "Right" decision, ever.

Yeah but in the movie God literally spoke to him! What, you thought that was supposed to be a hallucination?

Yeah it is Hollywood stuff, but I'm not talking about a situation where a person is going through some vague or amorphous process of trying to figure out what God wants you to do, without any type of clarity. Sometimes "you know" what God wants you to do in a given situation. And sometimes he does literally speak to people. Sometimes you just know without any doubt whatsoever what he wants you to do in a given situation.

I mean, if we are just talking about some BS where people are using "discernment" as a justification to do whatever it was that that they wanted to do in the first place, that is one thing. But that's not really what I am assuming here. I am assuming that a person legitimately (and in an earnest spirit) is attempting to discern the will of God.

I think there is room for that, although I would say that what the Church has specifically taught should be paramount in making that determination. Like you, if a person comes to a conclusion that is at odds with what the Church teaches, I think that his determination should be considered highly suspect, he would probably want to check his true motives and other outside influences that may be causing him to go the opposite way.

Now if we could only get people on this forum to apply that principle and show some respect for the Church's teaching on the death penalty! Alas.

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

In the early Church people who did this would be excommunicated for 7+ years, required to publicly confess and do hard penance before being re-admitted to communion.

Yeah but 7 years penance was a walk in the park back then. Jacob had to toil for 14 years just to marry this chick Rachel.

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

But my point in bringing up the movie and Fr. Martin was to illustrate a thing that is prevalent in Jesuit spirituality - the idea that personal discernment is the pinnacle of moral theology, and there really is no objective yard stick of good or bad discernment.

Yeah if they are saying it is the "pinnacle" I would disagree with that too.

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Im not a fan of the Jesuits because they are responsible for a lot of suffering (related to sex abuse particularly) in the world, and the deformation of this aspect of their charism (mental reservation discernment etc) is huge obstacle to healing, worldwide. 

Wait a second. All the pedophile priests are Jesuits all of a sudden? Come on now.

41 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Also, when someone plays semantic games, and you know they are playing, and they know you know they are playing, there's a limit you know.  It gets to be too cute. You dont have to be a crashing gong or clanging cymbal but some light percussion would be nice. 

But what if you think they are playing semantic games, but they really are not?

I am assuming that the above statement applies to PF as well. It's interesting to me that you have that perception of him, as playing "semantic games" or what have you. That has not been my perception of him at all. I think that sometimes he speaks too loosely and would be better to choose some of his words more carefully. I think that some of his handling of matters cold have been handled much better, but I don't buy the line that he is trying to hide the ball for some nefarious reason or some vague notion of "The Good of the Church" or something like that.

That could be in your head. Or I could be willfully blind to it. To be concluded in the next episode, I suppose.

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

Sorry but that's jesuitical. I didn't KNOW anything. I knew but I didn't KNOW. Give me a break.

Well one possibility is that he actually didn't recall anything about the allegations at the time that he made the "I know nothing" statement.

Like, if in the year 2013 someone has a vague 30 second conversation with you about XYZ by the time we get to 2018, it could very well be the case that the entire memory of the conversation is gone. Stuff like that happens to me all the time, where someone mentions a conversation to me that we had 6 months or a year ago, but I have no memory of it at all when they mention it to me, and I'll literally be like "I never said that, what are you talking about?" When I say "I never said that" it it not a lie or me being dishonest. I honestly didn't think that I said that, because the conversation was no longer within my memory.

One thing to me that is pretty telling is that there does not seem to be any record of any documents being formally submitted to PF concerning this matter (unless they were burned at the conclave!) That is pretty odd I think. If this guy McCarrrick is persona non-gratis and the entirety of Christendom from time immemorial is aware of his abuses, nobody thought it might be a good idea to send PF a letter or an email stating "Hey pal, watch out for this guy"? Does that make sense?

[Anastasia]

On 11/12/2020 at 7:18 AM, Lilllabettt said:

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/01/18/fr-james-martin-answers-5-common-questions-about-silence

In case it isn't clear to anyone reading, this is 1000% garbage.

I would say there is more in it i.e. there is an important message in the garbage that works on subconscious level so I feel a need to bring it out.  It is:

Fr Rodrigues does not understand the will of Christ just like Christ does not understand the will of His Father yet out of obedience to Christ – just like Christ sacrifices Himself out of obedience to His Father – he betrays Christ on a command of Christ and that action brings him closer to Christ.

This is the message, now the garbage it is packed into.

“Confusing as it seems to some Christian viewers, Christ requests this contradictory act from his priest. It makes little sense to anyone, least of all to Father Rodrigues, who has assiduously resisted it for himself. Yet he does it. Because Jesus has asked him to.
How can we understand that theologically? Perhaps by looking at the experience of Jesus on the cross, as recorded in the Gospels. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus struggles mightily to understand God’s will, and says, “Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” He does not wish to die. But then he says, “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 22:42).”

Jesus did not “struggles mightily to understand God’s will” because Father’s will also was His will, two wills in perfect harmony. Jesus is one Person and He knew what He was going to do; He spoke about that many times. He struggled with the approaching torture and death, both as the Son of Man and the Son of God. Fr. Martins needs to say “Jesus struggled to understand the will of the Father” to pull Jesus down a bit making Him a mere human, to explain “Jesus” in the movie saying “step on my image”. Yet he probably realized that the statement was questionable so he promptly moves on, throwing a huge emotional picture which is entirely truthful:

“Jesus does something that everyone in his circle opposes and misunderstands. Even Peter doesn’t want Jesus to suffer: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” (Mt. 16:22). The apostles do not want Jesus to suffer, much less to embrace the cross. It makes no sense to them.”

Those sentences imply “Fr Rodrigues is just like Christ’s disciples”. And then he returns to Christ, a very different Christ:

“Yet Jesus accepts his fate because this is what the Father asks. His actions make no sense outside of his relationship to the Father. Likewise, Father Rodrigues’s actions make no sense outside of his relationship to Christ.”

Here Fr Martin is clearly making parallels between a relationship of “Fr Rodrigues – Christ” and a relationship “Son of God – the Father”. The difference is that the result of the relationship of Christ with His Father was Christ’s self-sacrifice = self-affirmation, being Who He is and Atonement but the result of the relationship of “Fr Rodrigues – Christ” was the denial of Christ and the denial of who he was.

“In a sense, there is nothing subtle here: He apostatizes, finally, because Christ asks him to. And for those who say that Christ would never ask something like that, ask yourself how the disciples felt when Jesus told them he would have to suffer and die.”

Another swap. “Christ” in the movie does nothing himself, he asked Fr Rodrigues to do something = to deny him. The real Christ in the Gospels does not ask the disciples to do anything, He tell them that He was going to do something = to sacrifice Himself. (And, also He warns them not to deny Him.)

Finally, a really good twist:

“The third level of humility, the highest, is when a person is able to choose something dishonourable because it brings him or her closer to Christ. “I desire to be regarded as a useless fool for Christ, who before me was regarded as such,” in the words of the Spiritual Exercises. A person accepts being misunderstood, perhaps by everyone, just as Christ was.”

Thus Apostle Paul who was beaten up numerous times and eventually killed because he did not shut up but went on talking about Christ and who wrote “if we are faithless, He (Christ) remains faithful – for He cannot deny Himself” is somehow made akin to Fr Rodriquez who denies Christ. I am deliberately saying “Apostle Paul is made like Fr Rodriquez” and not “Fr Rodriquez made lie Apostle Paul” because the blur-discourse of Fr Martin inevitably blurs Christ, Gospels, Apostle Paul making everything relative. In this blur the denial of Christ, being the greatest act of humility, brings a person closer to Christ.

Hence a synopsis (a kernel):

Fr Rodrigues does not understand the will of Christ just like Christ does not understand the will of His Father yet out of obedience to Christ – just like Christ sacrifices Himself out of obedience to His Father – he betrays Christ on a command of Christ and that action brings him closer to Christ.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Anastasia

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, Peace said:

But here is the thing. What if you were in that situation and our Lord really did say to you "Lillabettt. I want you to step on my figure."

What would you do? Would you step on it, or would you be on some intellectual "No, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church states at paragraph 1208 that blasphemy is an intrinsic evil"?

I think that you would step on it, if that is what God told you to do, correct?

Now, you are probably right in that from what we know, God would never say such a thing in that situation (although I can't say that I have 100% absolute confidence in that conclusion). But that's not the hypothetical. The hypothetical is that God actually said it. From that standpoint, the Jesuits would be correct, would they not? It's not like you would pull out your Catechism and be like "No, Lord . . ."

Sure, there are all of these questions about whether the discernment is valid, whether the person is merely just trying to justify his actions under the pretense of discernment, or if he has been deceived, and so forth. But that is a bit beside the main point I think - that there is a legit role for discernment that goes beyond just a black and white following of code like a computer.

Yeah but in the movie God literally spoke to him! What, you thought that was supposed to be a hallucination?

Yeah it is Hollywood stuff, but I'm not talking about a situation where a person is going through some vague or amorphous process of trying to figure out what God wants you to do, without any type of clarity. Sometimes "you know" what God wants you to do in a given situation. And sometimes he does literally speak to people. Sometimes you just know without any doubt whatsoever what he wants you to do in a given situation.

I mean, if we are just talking about some BS where people are using "discernment" as a justification to do whatever it was that that they wanted to do in the first place, that is one thing. But that's not really what I am assuming here. I am assuming that a person legitimately (and in an earnest spirit) is attempting to discern the will of God.

I think there is room for that, although I would say that what the Church has specifically taught should be paramount in making that determination. Like you, if a person comes to a conclusion that is at odds with what the Church teaches, I think that his determination should be considered highly suspect, he would probably want to check his true motives and other outside influences that may be causing him to go the opposite way.

Now if we could only get people on this forum to apply that principle and show some respect for the Church's teaching on the death penalty! Alas.

Yeah but 7 years penance was a walk in the park back then. Jacob had to toil for 14 years just to marry this chick Rachel.

Yeah if they are saying it is the "pinnacle" I would disagree with that too.

Wait a second. All the pedophile priests are Jesuits all of a sudden? Come on now.

But what if you think they are playing semantic games, but they really are not?

I am assuming that the above statement applies to PF as well. It's interesting to me that you have that perception of him, as playing "semantic games" or what have you. That has not been my perception of him at all. I think that sometimes he speaks too loosely and would be better to choose some of his words more carefully. I think that some of his handling of matters cold have been handled much better, but I don't buy the line that he is trying to hide the ball for some nefarious reason or some vague notion of "The Good of the Church" or something like that.

That could be in your head. Or I could be willfully blind to it. To be concluded in the next episode, I suppose.

Well one possibility is that he actually didn't recall anything about the allegations at the time that he made the "I know nothing" statement.

Like, if in the year 2013 someone has a vague 30 second conversation with you about XYZ by the time we get to 2018, it could very well be the case that the entire memory of the conversation is gone. Stuff like that happens to me all the time, where someone mentions a conversation to me that we had 6 months or a year ago, but I have no memory of it at all when they mention it to me, and I'll literally be like "I never said that, what are you talking about?" When I say "I never said that" it it not a lie or me being dishonest. I honestly didn't think that I said that, because the conversation was no longer within my memory.

One thing to me that is pretty telling is that there does not seem to be any record of any documents being formally submitted to PF concerning this matter (unless they were burned at the conclave!) That is pretty odd I think. If this guy McCarrrick is persona non-gratis and the entirety of Christendom from time immemorial is aware of his abuses, nobody thought it might be a good idea to send PF a letter or an email stating "Hey pal, watch out for this guy"? Does that make sense?

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed"

If an angel, "the Virgin Mary" or "Jesus" Himself appears and tells me I need to apostasize, commit blasphemy, nuke a civilian population center, cover up sex abuse, etc etc I can be 100% sure it's not the BVM or Jesus. It's either me having a psychotic break or a super powered demon. So no ... if "Jesus Christ" appeared right now and told me to deny Him I'd tell him to go screw himself.  If my ability to resist or consent were messed with in some way, its possible I could be deceived. But then that would be bad discernment on the part of someone whose ability to discern properly is fundamentally undermined. Understandable, yes, reduced culpability (if any) yes, but once again, not in any way shape or form legit discernment.  "God" will never appear and tell you that  Jesus didn't rise from the dead. Because God is not a liar right. 

The Jesuits are not the only pedos in the world but. They run high schools. They are centrally organized in a way a lot of religious orders are not. And their spirituality can take people to dark places.

Priests and religious who abuse others sexually often have this elaborate "discernment" they bring their victims into where they "discern" the Lord wants them to have a sexual relationship.  Its sick stuff but if you've ever wondered how a sex abuser can do what they do and then go say Mass - in a lot of cases its because they are convinced the spirit is leading them. Basic Catholic moral theology  - eg "premarital sex is a mortal sin" doesn't apply to them because they've discerned. Then they discern with the nun they are directing spiritually or the high school kid they are coaching, that they are called to be United in the flesh and worship God together that way. Then lying about it, that's also ok.  It's what happens when the modern deformation of Jesuit spirituality is taught to people with damaged psyches. 

Idk why you are now arguing that PF didnt know - his own report says he knew. What ... you think he knew and then momentarily forgot? I've forgotten a lot of conversations over the years ... pretty sure I would remember the conversation where I find out my direct report is an accused pervert. Maybe he honestly can forget such things in which case the Pope job is not a good fit for his talents. 

I am pretty sure PF plays games because: 1. he is a Jesuit, and Jesuits are trained to play games. It's a distinctive feature of their charism. 2. He does just what Jesuits who play games do - speaks and acts ambiguously so that you need to parse his language with a fine tooth comb and different people can have a bunch of wildly different interpretations about the basic meaning of his communication. 3. If game playing were not the point, he could fix the mess quickly by clarifying.  But he never does because the mess is the point.

Idk what the Popes motives are... you can play games in an effort to win Elizabethan England back to Catholicism. You can play games because you are a power tripping prick. You can play games because you really believe it's an effective way of reaching people on the periphery. You can play games because you want to blow dog whistles using code words. Lots of different motives none of them real good where clerical abuse is concerned. I'm reminded of the repeated Scalafari interviews where PF was "misquoted" saying Jesus was not divine, then another where there is no hell, etc etc. He kept giving these interviews and getting misquoted, and never directly denying the misquotations. Why did he keep doing the interviews? Just awful judgment? Misunderstanding of his responsibilities as Pope (vs a non pope whose priority can be trying to convert a single atheist journalist, and talking to them even tho u know you will be misquoted?) Wanting to dog whistle to the heterodox about his real beliefs? Create ambiguity about these things? None of the options are very good. 

 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

if "Jesus Christ" appeared right now and told me to deny Him I'd tell him to go screw himself.

            ...well said!

[Peace]

6 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed"

If an angel, "the Virgin Mary" or "Jesus" Himself appears and tells me I need to apostasize, commit blasphemy, nuke a civilian population center, cover up sex abuse, etc etc I can be 100% sure it's not the BVM or Jesus. It's either me having a psychotic break or a super powered demon. So no ... if "Jesus Christ" appeared right now and told me to deny Him I'd tell him to go screw himself.  If my ability to resist or consent were messed with in some way, its possible I could be deceived. But then that would be bad discernment on the part of someone whose ability to discern properly is fundamentally undermined. Understandable, yes, reduced culpability (if any) yes, but once again, not in any way shape or form legit discernment.  "God" will never appear and tell you that  Jesus didn't rise from the dead. Because God is not a liar right. 

Ah but Jesus is not mentioned in that Bible verse now is he?

At least to me, it seems that you leave no room, or very little room, for "conscience" or "discernment" in your own life. It kind of seems that you have living out the faith reduced to an intellectual exercise of applying Rule X to situation Y, somewhat like a robot executing computer code. I don't mean for that to be an insult but it does seem like you have a general disdain for the concepts. Is that a fair or incorrect assessment?

Look, I think you are missing the point of the hypothetical. The hypothetical says "Jesus appeared" not "an angel appeared" or "a demon pretending to be Jesus" appeared.

The point is this - we do not yet share in the beatific vision. We have a very limited understanding of God. What happens when God further reveals himself, and that revelation conflicts with your previous understanding or expectation of him? Do you follow God, or do say "screw you," as you so eloquently put it, and continue to follow your rule-book insisting that you are correct, when you have the truth right before you?

Do you stone the adulteress because that is what is written in God's law, or do you refuse to do it when the Lord appears before you and instructs you otherwise?

That's the point of the hypothetical. Sure, I don't think that Jesus is going to appear and tell someone to step on his image, rape an infant, nuke a city, either. If that happened in real life I would suspect, just as you suppose, that it was an "angel pretending" or something along those lines too. I already made that clear in my previous posts.

6 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

The Jesuits are not the only pedos in the world but. They run high schools. They are centrally organized in a way a lot of religious orders are not. And their spirituality can take people to dark places.

Priests and religious who abuse others sexually often have this elaborate "discernment" they bring their victims into where they "discern" the Lord wants them to have a sexual relationship.  Its sick stuff but if you've ever wondered how a sex abuser can do what they do and then go say Mass - in a lot of cases its because they are convinced the spirit is leading them.

Basic Catholic moral theology  - eg "premarital sex is a mortal sin" doesn't apply to them because they've discerned. Then they discern with the nun they are directing spiritually or the high school kid they are coaching, that they are called to be United in the flesh and worship God together that way. Then lying about it, that's also ok.  It's what happens when the modern deformation of Jesuit spirituality is taught to people with damaged psyches. 

Nah. I don't really buy into all of that. Sorry. Look, I think they are just making excuses to justify their evil, like how some folks would quote the Bible to justify slavery or racism.

That does not mean that there is anything wrong with the Bible, or with the concept of attempting to discern the will of God, simply because people abuse them to do evil. You can take any type of Catholic spirituality and abuse it.

6 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

Idk why you are now arguing that PF didnt know - his own report says he knew. What ... you think he knew and then momentarily forgot? I've forgotten a lot of conversations over the years ... pretty sure I would remember the conversation where I find out my direct report is an accused pervert. Maybe he honestly can forget such things in which case the Pope job is not a good fit for his talents. 

I am not arguing that he didn't know.

Whether he momentarily forgot or not, I don't know the answer to that. But yes, that is certainly a possibility. The report (at least the parts I have seen) do not contain any statements along the lines of "On XYZ date Cardinal ABC sat down with PF and had a 20 minute conversation with PF, in which he detailed the accusations against Cardinal McCarrick." It states something like "PF was only aware of rumors of improper conduct" or something like that. That's why I said I would want to look into the report and get more detail about specifically what was said to him. Look, if PF is at a dinner party in 2013 and the great Vigano comes up to him with a glass of wine in his hand and whispers into his left ear "You know that McCarrick, he is a real pervert" and PF is like "I'm a just ignore that spicy tidbit because Benedict and JP2 were allowing McCarrick to fly around the world acting on behalf of the Church, so obviously that is BS" - yeah maybe the pope, and old man as popes tend to be, forgot about that convo five years later in the year 2018.

Now whether it went down like that, or in some other manner, I don't know yet. Show me the money.

I'll be trying to get into the rest of the report at some point to see if there is more detail about the specific mode of communication of the rumors.

6 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

I am pretty sure PF plays games because: 1. he is a Jesuit, and Jesuits are trained to play games. It's a distinctive feature of their charism. 2. He does just what Jesuits who play games do - speaks and acts ambiguously so that you need to parse his language with a fine tooth comb and different people can have a bunch of wildly different interpretations about the basic meaning of his communication. 3. If game playing were not the point, he could fix the mess quickly by clarifying.  But he never does because the mess is the point.

LOL. You really don't like them. Tell them why you mad son! Tell them why you mad.

That's cool though. I ain't about to take sides in the great Jesuit - Lillabett beef of 2020. I'm not educated on the order so I'm not in a position to speak on them. But at least I should check it out myself to see if there is proof to back up your assertions. So it's useful from that standpoint.

6 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

Idk what the Popes motives are... you can play games in an effort to win Elizabethan England back to Catholicism. You can play games because you are a power tripping prick. You can play games because you really believe it's an effective way of reaching people on the periphery. You can play games because you want to blow dog whistles using code words. Lots of different motives none of them real good where clerical abuse is concerned. I'm reminded of the repeated Scalafari interviews where PF was "misquoted" saying Jesus was not divine, then another where there is no hell, etc etc. He kept giving these interviews and getting misquoted, and never directly denying the misquotations. Why did he keep doing the interviews? Just awful judgment? Misunderstanding of his responsibilities as Pope (vs a non pope whose priority can be trying to convert a single atheist journalist, and talking to them even tho u know you will be misquoted?) Wanting to dog whistle to the heterodox about his real beliefs? Create ambiguity about these things? None of the options are very good.

There is way too much Monday morning quarterbacking going on here. Look, yeah there are many situations in which I think he could have carried out his duties as pope better, or I see myself handling in a different manner were I in the same situation. But it is a difficult job and he is a faulty human being just like every other person on the planet. You tell me where we are going to find this mythical pope of lore who is going to swoop down from the heavens and always have the proper words to say, deal with this insane media, numerous sexual abuse scandals, all the while converting the entire Earth to the Catholic faith by the sheer eloquence of his statements, and most importantly satisfying the particular demands of Lillabett on Phatmass?

We already know that many of the same problems that existed under PF existed (and indeed appear to have been much worse) under the popes that came before him. How far back in history do we need to go to find this pope that Catholics will not whine and complain about? We literally have to go back hundreds of years into history to find a pope that people were happy with, and if these same Catholics were alive during that pope's reign, I am pretty sure they would have been whining and complaining about him not doing his job right then.

I shall now end my rant. Have a nice day.

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, Peace said:

Ah but Jesus is not mentioned in that Bible verse now is he?

At least to me, it seems that you leave no room, or very little room, for "conscience" or "discernment" in your own life. It kind of seems that you have living out the faith reduced to an intellectual exercise of applying Rule X to situation Y, somewhat like a robot executing computer code. I don't mean for that to be an insult but it does seem like you have a general disdain for the concepts. Is that a fair or incorrect assessment?

Do you have a background in evangelical fundamentalism or other system with a rigid interpretation of the Bible?  The Bible is an inexhaustibly rich literary source but it must be very dry reading for you if you are limited to reading it this way. St Paul's instructions to the galatians are to not listen to anyone who preaches a false Gospel. The list of people he mentions - an angel or himself even, is not intended to be exhaustive and limited to those 2 types of false preacher. Naming himself and an angel is supposed to communicate the idea that everyone from a-z is in that bucket - anyone or anything that comes preaching a false Gospel is accursed. The principle he is teaching them is they need to cling to the Gospel and not visions and wonders and charismatic personalities.

This is the Gold Standard of good discernment by the way - and if you've ever been on a good quality Ignatian retreat this is what they teach.  Whenever a vision or apparition commands disobedience to the Gospel you know something is up. When St Faustina had Jesus appearing to her, sometimes He would request something and then an order by her religious superior (a person with legitimate ecclesiastical  authority in the external forum) would contradict it. So, St Faustina had to choose to obey her superior or the vision of Jesus. Because she had rock solid formation she chose her superior. This was a big test - would the Jesus she was seeing be mad she obeyed her superior rather than him? If so that would have indicated a false vision; "Jesus" has a tail and hooves under those white robes. 

"I will follow Your will, insofar as You will permit me to do so through Your representative. O my Jesus, it cannot be helped, but I give priority to the voice of the Church over the voice with which You speak to me" (Diary of St. Faustina, 497).

In other words, the Gospel is the objective ruler we can use to guide us to good discernment. 

This is not an intellectual exercise.  It's a fundamental principle by which Christians navigate the world. 

1 hour ago, Peace said:

Do you stone the adulteress because that is what is written in God's law, or do you refuse to do it when the Lord appears before you and instructs you otherwise?

You keep bringing this up ... it's not relevant. The Gospel is not a law, it is saving knowledge of who God is. 

For example we know God does not do evil so that good may come of it. This is a new thing we know about who God is; ancient Judaism did not teach this and it's far from apparent in the Torah. It's the Gospel, the good news - & who gives us the good news and not the fake news - the Church. (I'm not referring to the human side of the Church either)

When we discern and say "I'm going to do X, it's the right thing to do even though the Gospel says it is not," we are not breaking a law, we are breaking faith. We no longer believe in the Gospel as the truth about who God and Goodness Itself, is. If we do X even as we acknowledge it's wrong, THAT is breaking a law. Congratulations you're still a Christian, just a sinful one. 

Maybe 1% of decisions in life are black and white, because of the Gospel. 99% of decisions are in a grey area, like whether to go to your brother's wedding which is outside the church. Whether trans identity is real and should be treated by society that way. I recently adopted an embryonic baby. The Church doesn't preach whether this is acceptable or not in light of who we know God is. I had to discern it myself using the Gospel as my yardstick.  

Back to the principle of mental reservation.  What this doctrine authentically means is: if you are faced with a choice between justice, and revealing the truth to people who have no right to know it, choose justice. This is 100% congruent with who the Gospel says God is. God is not a liar, but neither is His top priority blasting the truth on a boombox 24/7.  The devil is in the details as it is a risky and perilous way to operate. If your ruler and guide is discernment rather than the Gospel, very likely you will get it wrong.

Someone using mental reservation to justify not disclosing sex misconduct in order to "protect the Church's reputation" as @HumilityAndPatience suggested,  is doing the wrong. God cares nothing about his reputation compared to the truth. The faithful have a right to know what their leaders knew and when about sexual misconduct- using mental reservation to avoid disclosing this is injustice.  

In this thread we are talking about 2 different things.  My fault as I brought them up in an attempt to demonstrate how Jesuit spirituality has rotted.

1. Is prudential judgment around when to use mental reservation.  Prudential judgment in this area can just be BAD, and if someone is using "personal discernment" rather than the Gospel as the ruler of discernment, they are very likely to eff it up.

2. Is Fr Martins "discernment" around whether to commit blasphemy and apostasize to save lives or because a vision of "Jesus" appeared and orders it. There is no prudential judgment in this area. This is the 1% of black and white things the Gospel covers. Theres a clear red line between the Gospel and doing blasphemy for any reason. But ... like I said. If you put discernment over the Gospel, then it becomes harder to know right from wrong. The Gospel says it's wrong, but your "discernment" and also "Jesus" standing here, say it's right. Who and what do you believe? This is not a question of following the law. Do you believe the Gospel or "discernment" and "Jesus." 

For many modern Jesuits it's the 2nd option. Or, how they've explained it to me is, personal discernment is more or less the Gospel itself. The Gospel isn't something that's preached by the Church but an individual revelation from God to the individual made thru discernment. (This is garbage.)

I brought it up to illustrate why mental reservation is deployed ineffectively so much in modern world... because it is deployed by people who privilege discernment over the Gospel.

[Lilllabettt]

Basically... in the hypothetical where "Jesus" appears and tells someone to nuke a civilian population center, apostasize, rape a child, Fr Martin suggests good discernment could go either way. As he says, betray the Gospel, betray Christ, to grow closer to "Christ". Its a fake Hollywood situation but the point is in the hypothetical situation,  Fr Martin says you might discern these things which are totally opposed to the Gospel are the right thing to do. And that is good discernment. This was meant as an exemplar of how broken Jesuit spirituality is ... surprise surprise I am arguing with you about whether he is correct. Gobsmacked am I. But illustrative that this philosophy - personal discernment is King - has really made inroads. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by Lilllabettt

[Peace]

13 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Basically... in the hypothetical where "Jesus" appears and tells someone to nuke a civilian population center, apostasize, rape a child, Fr Martin suggests good discernment could go either way. As he says, betray the Gospel, betray Christ, to grow closer to "Christ". Its a fake Hollywood situation but the point is in the hypothetical situation,  Fr Martin says you might discern these things which are totally opposed to the Gospel are the right thing to do. And that is good discernment. This was meant as an exemplar of how broken Jesuit spirituality is ... surprise surprise I am arguing with you about whether he is correct. Gobsmacked am I. But illustrative that this philosophy - personal discernment is King - has really made inroads. 

I haven't even read the Fr. Martin article yet, but from the summary that you have provided in this thread - it was not my intention to argue that his view (as summarized by you) is correct. I am attempting to discuss a more general question relating to the choice between what we understand to be the truth based on our intellectual reasoning versus being put face to face with the truth in the form of our Lord himself. So to a certain extent we may be talking past each other. I'll respond later with a bit more detail concerning that.

[HumilityAndPatience]

3 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

Someone using mental reservation to justify not disclosing sex misconduct in order to "protect the Church's reputation" as @HumilityAndPatience suggested,  is doing the wrong. God cares nothing about his reputation compared to the truth. The faithful have a right to know what their leaders knew and when about sexual misconduct- using mental reservation to avoid disclosing this is injustice.

This is a strawman. The charitable assumption being proposed is that PF held any allegations as pending affirmation. This is not "not disclosing sex misconduct". 

As the report itself suggests, the reason JP2 promoted McCarrick so much is because of his experience of Communist regimes smearing reputations of clerics. This is more convoluted than you are proposing, with respect. 

4 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

I brought it up to illustrate why mental reservation is deployed ineffectively so much in modern world... because it is deployed by people who privilege discernment over the Gospel.

Does the imperfect implementation of a justifiable action (prudential judgement in respect of communicating) mean that that action shouldn't be allowed?

In other words, can you not see the risk of legalism invading logic and reason? Take the example of hiding a just man from murderers as a starting point. Do you agree that it is okay to "lie" to his assailants? If so, you agree with the principle. 

If you agree with the principle, in cases where there is charitable scope to assume justifiable prudential judgement has been used, who are we to judge that judgement? 

[Lilllabettt]

2 hours ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

who are we to judge that judgement? 

Jesus commands us to judge such things, and to do so righteously. 

Just pretend PF is a lay high school principal and not the Pope. Pretend you are a parent and he treats questions about a disgraced teacher the way he has this. Would you be so willing to stretch credulity "to be charitable." Would you tolerate anything but a direct answer. let's be real. You would pull your kid out yesterday. Me, I would be on the phone to the police. PF gets more runway because hes a priest and the Pope. It's called clericalism.

 

[HumilityAndPatience]

3 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Would you be so willing to stretch credulity

That credulity was stretched to through decades and three pontificates