The Fake Followers of Pope Francis
One can be excommunicable without being legally excommunicated. One can be, in fact, with their ideas and behaviors outside of true communion with the Pope, even without being officially excommunicated. Furthermore, one can pretend to be in communion with the Pope, flatter him, adulate him, parrot his every word, use and manipulate him, plot, and act secretly without sincere communion with the Pope. These are the modernists and the fake implementers of the Second Vatican Council. They are the ones who consider themselves the upper class.
The Pope, for his part, given the situation of the irremediable modernist dictatorship (the so-called "single thought"), must turn lemons into lemonade. He either lacks the strength or does not find it fruitful or convenient to excommunicate all those who, by strict canon law, would deserve to be excommunicated.
Regarding some fake devotees, the Pope is not always sufficiently informed about the harm they do; others, very cunning, deceive him. Others, he prefers to endure and tolerate because, alongside their errors, they possess good or even excellent qualities with which they can collaborate with him for the good of the Church, at least in certain areas. With some, he is too indulgent.
It should be noted that the excommunicated or the excommunicable is not the apostate, the atheist, the blasphemer, the impious, the materialist, or the satanist, who lives as a beast immersed in vices or acts in the service of the devil. Although undoubtedly under his influence, the former possesses human, moral, and spiritual qualities that enable him, from this perspective, to continue serving the Church.
In one respect, the rebel, the Pharisee, and the fake devotee cause damage, but in other respects, they continue to do good, at least in certain areas. Therefore, excommunication is a legal measure or practice that the Pope or the Bishop uses at the appropriate times and in certain circumstances with great prudence and discretion, calculating each time case by case whether it is better to intervene or not intervene on someone who causes harm to the Church or refuses full communion with it.
Since the Second Vatican Council, we have witnessed, on the one hand, the gradual implementation by the Church of the reforms initiated by the Council and, on the other hand, the rise of two antithetical schismatic movements that have separated from the Church in two opposite directions: one, that of the Rahnerians, pretending to be the interpreter of the ecclesial progress promoted by the Council; the other, that initiated by Archbishop Lefebvre, who, believing in the name of tradition to see a modernist influence in the conciliar doctrines, has openly opposed the way the post-conciliar Popes have guided the Church along the path indicated by the Council itself.
Now, both the Rahnerians and the Lefebvrists carry forward Catholic values, the former in the line of progress, the latter of tradition; the former attentive to the mutable, the latter to the immutable; the former attentive to diversity and pluralism, the latter to unity and universality; the former attentive to the values of modernity and common humanity, the latter hostile to the errors of modernity; the former have expanded the horizons of freedom and mercy, the latter reminds us that, although God wants all to be saved not all are saved; finding ourselves still in the condition of fallen nature, divine punishments still exist, it is still our duty to atone for sins and practice asceticism; the Church must occasionally exercise its coercive power and States still have the right-duty to defend their legitimate interests with the use of armed forces.
Rahnerians and Lefebvrists lack some Catholic values, so they have a deficient concept of the Church and Catholicism, they are not in full communion with the Church and the Roman Pontiff. That is, they are de facto schismatics, and therefore in principle excommunicable, even if the Church has declared this only for the Lefebvrists and not for the Rahnerians. But the latter embrace heresies of a gnoseological, theological, Christological, Trinitarian, sacramental, eschatological, and ecclesial nature already condemned by the Church.
The Church is indulgent and tolerant towards the Rahnerians because they currently hold such positions of power within the Church that disciplinary action against them seems inadvisable (bold mine, Ed.) and counterproductive, so it is convenient for the Church to endure them, appreciate their positive aspects, and conduct a patient work of persuasion, aimed at making them aware of the corruption of morals, the divisions, and the apostasies caused by the implementation of their ideas, and thus that they are not the advanced vanguard of the Church, but those are the faithful who truly and fully implement the conciliar reforms as intended not in their modernistic interpretation, but in the right sense indicated by the post-conciliar Popes.
The faithful who are fully and truly Catholic, who do not insult the Pope as if he were a heretic, but who also, pretend to be devoted to the Pope, do not disobey the Magisterium by claiming that he can be wrong, those Catholics who fully implement communion with the Church and with the Pope in the true implementation of the conciliar reforms, are the ones who achieve true and legitimate ecclesial pluralism and not the disordered and conflicting pluralism of the Rahnerian modernists.
This legitimate and constructive pluralism, an expression of true freedom, the effect of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, promoting fraternal and constructive dialogue and mutual collaboration, concord, unity, and peace, respecting diversity, made of sincerity, justice, and mercy, advancing towards the Kingdom in the furrow of tradition, is the pluralism that results from the conjunction and collaboration of the two natural physiological community processes of ecclesial dynamism, inherent in life, which are the act of preserving-guarding and the act of progressing-renewing.
The living being, as such, has two fundamental needs: to preserve its identity and to grow and expand its existence. In the Church, the first need is satisfied by tradition, the second by progress. Tradition and progress must therefore converge together for the good of the whole.
Each Catholic is granted the freedom, according to their nature, inclinations, or specific gifts received from God, to choose between progressive or traditionalist orientations. The crucial point is to understand these two values as the Church understands them; therefore, no to Lefebvrist traditionalism, which is immobility, rigidity, and backwardness. Reject Rahnerian progressivism, characterized by modernism, subversion, heresy, infidelity, and destruction. It is about uniting and not opposing the immutable to the mutable, the eternal to the temporal, the human to the divine according to the mystery of the Incarnation.
Among other possible examples, we can name two paradigmatic contemporary theologians, one progressive and the other traditionalist in the authentically Catholic sense: Maritain and the Servant of God Father Tomas Tyn. We are free to gather around one or the other, as we prefer, as our sensibility dictates.
The Maritainians may appeal to the modernists because they recognize their values. The Tynians may appeal to the Lefebvrists because they acknowledge their shared values and can collaborate simultaneously for peace and reconciliation between Lefebvrists and Rahnerians, all in full communion with the Church and the Pope, combining progress and tradition, as is right and proper so that the Church may live, function, and prosper according to the will of Christ.
We Catholics, aspiring to embody the full depth of our faith, strive for genuine communion among ourselves in a spirit of synodality, remaining steadfastly united with Pope Francis. Embracing the freedom and boldness of God's children, listening to the impulses of the Holy Spirit, whether we are Tynians or Maritainians, it does not matter, let us fully work in calling to us and full and sincere communion with us and with the Church our schismatic brothers, whether they are recognized or not recognized as such it does not matter – we pay attention to facts more than legal forms – whether they are backward or modernist, Lefebvrist or Rahnerian around that unity of faith and discipline that can only be ensured by fidelity to the living Magisterium of the Church, which even today for eight centuries recommends Saint Thomas as the Common Doctor of the Church, but Saint Thomas in the terms in which he is recommended and proposed as an example by the Council.
Only under these conditions can we hope to overcome this turmoil of internal ecclesial conflict, unprecedented in the entire history of the Church. Let us all listen to the Spirit with a synodal spirit and obedience to the Pope, and we will find the paths of peace and concord.
Father Giovanni Cavalcoli OP
Fontanellato, July 7, 2024
Source:
https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/i-finti-devoti-di-papa-francesco.html