Bergoglio's papacy has just ended, and with it the media marathon that
accompanied him in the progressive exposure of suffering. The theme of
suffering is a central aspect of the Christian faith. According to
Catholic doctrine, the suffering of man as such is not wanted or
procured by God, it is the result of the consequences of original sin,
of the wickedness of men and of personal sins; however, it is "allowed"
by God because we have deserved it with our sins (suffering as
punishment). If suffering in itself is not a new aspect in the Christian
world, its spectacularization with the help of the media is, as also
happened with Bergoglio. This obviously significantly amplifies the
emotional message. Bergoglio's stylistic figure, in the
two-thousand-year journey of Catholicism, has been the scientific use of
the media tool, not only for its ability to spread messages, but above
all for its ability to bridge the gap between reality and imagination,
between what Bergoglio concretely represented and wanted to convey and
what was instead perceived. What was spread by the media, and therefore
commonly understood, was the image of a "progressive",
"anti-capitalist", "ecologist" pope. The reality, starting from his
biography and concrete history, is of the opposite meaning and the media
use is fundamental for an evaluation of his work. The image that
Bergoglio immediately wanted to convey, since his installation, was that
of an anti-Curia pontiff, representative of a clerical populism.
In the spring of 2013 Bergoglio gave Scalfari, then director of
Repubblica, an interview in which he defined the Curia as the "leprosy
of the papacy". The myth of the leader who becomes humble, of the
individual against the system, the ancient re-proposal of good, often
depicted in a single person, against evil, often depicted as impersonal,
is spreading. With the arrival of Bergoglio, the Church found itself
with an exceptional and very singular additional tool to avoid reforms,
using the media intuition of the conflict between the Curia and the new
Pope. It was the tool to divert attention from the fundamental theme of
the reforms of the Church, to bring the conflict to a personal level by
reducing it to the confrontation between Bergoglio and the Roman Curia.
The staging of a conflict, which we will see in reality, is in fact
non-existent, it contributed to giving the impression that a great
change was underway within the Church, and that Bergoglio was its
initiator. The media construction is scientific: there is no
transmission of the image of Bergoglio that does not underline his
presumed humility, especially the renunciation of the material
privileges of the office. The image of a lifestyle that is the opposite
of that commonly perceived for Ratzinger, the Pope of the red Prada
shoes, is spreading. The image of Bergoglio, consistent with the poor he
defends, are the worn out moccasins, the anonymous and worn out black
travel bag carried on the plane, the queue with the tray in hand at the
soup kitchen of Santa Marta, the off-the-cuff speeches, often given
during the trips on board the plane. In short, the intention is to
communicate a consistency with the defense of the poor and a modest
lifestyle. But Bergoglio's concrete actions clearly contradict the image
and instead mark a path opposite to the reformist one.
Let's mention just a few of a long series of examples and choices that
involve figures that are at the very least questionable: Cardinal Pell,
involved in a scandal related to the sexual abuse of minors, appointed
head of the "Secretariat for the Economy"; Josè Rodriguez, appointed
Archbishop of Belcastro and under investigation for illicit trafficking
of weapons and drugs; Cardinal Comastri, head for over fifteen years of
the Fabbrica di S.Pietro, one of the most nefarious structures of the
Roman Curia, which should take care of the maintenance of the basilica
and whose management is completely out of control.
Truly commendable examples of renewal and "moralization"!
But let's return to the construction of the myth of Francis.
One of the images most manipulated by media communication on Bergoglio's
work has been his alleged openness to the "gender" issue and
homosexuality. In this regard, it is worth recalling what is reported in
the encyclical Amoris Laetitia in paragraph 56: <Another challenge
emerges from various forms of an ideology, generically called gender,
which «denies the difference and natural reciprocity of man and woman.
It envisages a society without differences of sex, and empties the
anthropological basis of the family. This ideology induces educational
projects and legislative orientations that promote a personal identity
and an emotional intimacy radically detached from the biological
diversity between male and female. Human identity is handed over to an
individualistic option, even one that changes over time". It is
disturbing that some ideologies of this type, which claim to respond to
certain sometimes understandable aspirations, seek to impose themselves
as a single thought that also determines the education of children>
With respect to homosexuality, nothing has changed with respect to the
text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church approved in his time by
Wojtyla: we report the passages directly concerned, which clearly
contradict the declarations of recent days of those who praised
Bergoglio's great openings towards the homosexual question:
"Homosexuality designates relations between men or women who experience
a sexual attraction, exclusive or predominant, towards persons of the
same sex. It manifests itself in very different forms throughout the
centuries and in different cultures. Its psychic genesis remains largely
inexplicable. Relying on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual
relations as grave depravities, Tradition has always declared that
homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to
natural law. They preclude the sexual act from the gift of life. They
are not the fruit of a true affective and sexual complementarity. In no
case can they be approved. A non-negligible number of men and women have
deeply rooted homosexual tendencies. This inclination, objectively
disordered, constitutes a trial for the majority of them. Therefore they
must be welcomed with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. In their
regard, every sign of unjust discrimination must be avoided. Such people
are called to carry out the will of God in their lives, and, if they are
Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's cross the
difficulties they may encounter as a result of their condition".
On the other hand, Bergoglio has always fought against equal marriage
between homosexuals. In 2009 he wrote to the head of government of the
city of Buenos Aires, Macrì, to protest against a ruling that declared
homosexual marriages valid. The letter that Bergoglio wrote to the
Carmelites of Buenos Aires was made public, where he declared that the
new law for the legalization of homosexual marriages and adoptions was a
threat to the family, as it would produce children without fathers and
without mothers, and that it represented a frontal attack on the law of
God. In the law - we quote literally - the tail of the serpent can be
seen thanks to the usual telltale signs: hysteria, division, confusion,
envy, it was therefore the war of God.
Another aspect literally forgotten in the twelve years of Bergoglio's
pontificate and which certainly does not link him to the progressive
sectors is was a debate on the "Teologia del pueblo" of which he himself
declared himself a "son" and which was the instrument to defeat the
"Theology of Liberation" in the South American continent.
In 1973 Bergoglio became Provincial of the Jesuits. In those years the
Jesuits, in the Latin American continent, were deeply divided, and a
significant part of them leaned towards the Theology of Liberation.
In this context, Father General Arrupe chose Bergoglio, then 36 years
old, as provincial of the Jesuits. The choice represented a clear
political and ideological sign: Bergoglio was chosen because he was one
of the most convinced representatives of the Teologia del Pueblo,
antithetical to the Theology of Liberation, to which Bergoglio was
always hostile, defining it as "theology of Marxist liberation". In
short, the Teologia del Pueblo is a theology of culture, understood in
its complex of traditions, gestures, rituals, radically "anti-modernist
and anti-progressive". According to Bergoglio, Argentina was in crisis
because it was prey to ideologies foreign to its history, liberalism and
Marxism. The priority, therefore, had to be to protect the way of being
of its "pueblo", the only worthy and authentic representative of the
only Catholic Continent, son of Hispanic Catholicism. In fact, a
national Catholic apotheosis, the triumph of third-worldism in a
reactionary key. Faith and Nation understood by Bergoglio as one thing:
the enemy is the Enlightenment rationality, the liberal claim to
homogenize everything through the economy and culture, the "scientific
and technocratic progressivism" that threatened the "Christian
civilization" and the authentic national values of the "Pueblo".
The last aspect ignored by the media, carefully avoided so as not to
have obstacles in the construction of the myth of Francis, is that
relating to the relations with the Argentine dictatorship. Bergoglio's
silence on this issue is deafening, not a word about the "death flights"
over the ocean, about the involvement of large Italian companies with
the military junta, about the mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
Despite the desire to obscure, his youthful militancy in the "Iron
Guard" group, a supporter of the Peronist right, in which Videla (one of
the three triumvirs of the military junta) also militated, and his
involvement in various episodes, starting with the one involving the two
Jesuits, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were asked to abandon
their work in the shanty towns and leave. When they refused, Bergoglio
excluded them from the Society of Jesus and even had their authorization
to say mass revoked.
It is no coincidence that Bergoglio, a tireless "traveler of the Faith,"
never set foot in Argentina during his papacy and was harshly contested
in Chile during his pastoral visit in 2018, when numerous churches
burned down.
This is a first picture of a reactionary papacy, which will go down in
history as progressive.
Daniele Ratti
https://umanitanova.org/oltre-ogni-narrazione-mediatica-lennesimo-papato-reazionario/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
accompanied him in the progressive exposure of suffering. The theme of
suffering is a central aspect of the Christian faith. According to
Catholic doctrine, the suffering of man as such is not wanted or
procured by God, it is the result of the consequences of original sin,
of the wickedness of men and of personal sins; however, it is "allowed"
by God because we have deserved it with our sins (suffering as
punishment). If suffering in itself is not a new aspect in the Christian
world, its spectacularization with the help of the media is, as also
happened with Bergoglio. This obviously significantly amplifies the
emotional message. Bergoglio's stylistic figure, in the
two-thousand-year journey of Catholicism, has been the scientific use of
the media tool, not only for its ability to spread messages, but above
all for its ability to bridge the gap between reality and imagination,
between what Bergoglio concretely represented and wanted to convey and
what was instead perceived. What was spread by the media, and therefore
commonly understood, was the image of a "progressive",
"anti-capitalist", "ecologist" pope. The reality, starting from his
biography and concrete history, is of the opposite meaning and the media
use is fundamental for an evaluation of his work. The image that
Bergoglio immediately wanted to convey, since his installation, was that
of an anti-Curia pontiff, representative of a clerical populism.
In the spring of 2013 Bergoglio gave Scalfari, then director of
Repubblica, an interview in which he defined the Curia as the "leprosy
of the papacy". The myth of the leader who becomes humble, of the
individual against the system, the ancient re-proposal of good, often
depicted in a single person, against evil, often depicted as impersonal,
is spreading. With the arrival of Bergoglio, the Church found itself
with an exceptional and very singular additional tool to avoid reforms,
using the media intuition of the conflict between the Curia and the new
Pope. It was the tool to divert attention from the fundamental theme of
the reforms of the Church, to bring the conflict to a personal level by
reducing it to the confrontation between Bergoglio and the Roman Curia.
The staging of a conflict, which we will see in reality, is in fact
non-existent, it contributed to giving the impression that a great
change was underway within the Church, and that Bergoglio was its
initiator. The media construction is scientific: there is no
transmission of the image of Bergoglio that does not underline his
presumed humility, especially the renunciation of the material
privileges of the office. The image of a lifestyle that is the opposite
of that commonly perceived for Ratzinger, the Pope of the red Prada
shoes, is spreading. The image of Bergoglio, consistent with the poor he
defends, are the worn out moccasins, the anonymous and worn out black
travel bag carried on the plane, the queue with the tray in hand at the
soup kitchen of Santa Marta, the off-the-cuff speeches, often given
during the trips on board the plane. In short, the intention is to
communicate a consistency with the defense of the poor and a modest
lifestyle. But Bergoglio's concrete actions clearly contradict the image
and instead mark a path opposite to the reformist one.
Let's mention just a few of a long series of examples and choices that
involve figures that are at the very least questionable: Cardinal Pell,
involved in a scandal related to the sexual abuse of minors, appointed
head of the "Secretariat for the Economy"; Josè Rodriguez, appointed
Archbishop of Belcastro and under investigation for illicit trafficking
of weapons and drugs; Cardinal Comastri, head for over fifteen years of
the Fabbrica di S.Pietro, one of the most nefarious structures of the
Roman Curia, which should take care of the maintenance of the basilica
and whose management is completely out of control.
Truly commendable examples of renewal and "moralization"!
But let's return to the construction of the myth of Francis.
One of the images most manipulated by media communication on Bergoglio's
work has been his alleged openness to the "gender" issue and
homosexuality. In this regard, it is worth recalling what is reported in
the encyclical Amoris Laetitia in paragraph 56: <Another challenge
emerges from various forms of an ideology, generically called gender,
which «denies the difference and natural reciprocity of man and woman.
It envisages a society without differences of sex, and empties the
anthropological basis of the family. This ideology induces educational
projects and legislative orientations that promote a personal identity
and an emotional intimacy radically detached from the biological
diversity between male and female. Human identity is handed over to an
individualistic option, even one that changes over time". It is
disturbing that some ideologies of this type, which claim to respond to
certain sometimes understandable aspirations, seek to impose themselves
as a single thought that also determines the education of children>
With respect to homosexuality, nothing has changed with respect to the
text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church approved in his time by
Wojtyla: we report the passages directly concerned, which clearly
contradict the declarations of recent days of those who praised
Bergoglio's great openings towards the homosexual question:
"Homosexuality designates relations between men or women who experience
a sexual attraction, exclusive or predominant, towards persons of the
same sex. It manifests itself in very different forms throughout the
centuries and in different cultures. Its psychic genesis remains largely
inexplicable. Relying on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual
relations as grave depravities, Tradition has always declared that
homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to
natural law. They preclude the sexual act from the gift of life. They
are not the fruit of a true affective and sexual complementarity. In no
case can they be approved. A non-negligible number of men and women have
deeply rooted homosexual tendencies. This inclination, objectively
disordered, constitutes a trial for the majority of them. Therefore they
must be welcomed with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. In their
regard, every sign of unjust discrimination must be avoided. Such people
are called to carry out the will of God in their lives, and, if they are
Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's cross the
difficulties they may encounter as a result of their condition".
On the other hand, Bergoglio has always fought against equal marriage
between homosexuals. In 2009 he wrote to the head of government of the
city of Buenos Aires, Macrì, to protest against a ruling that declared
homosexual marriages valid. The letter that Bergoglio wrote to the
Carmelites of Buenos Aires was made public, where he declared that the
new law for the legalization of homosexual marriages and adoptions was a
threat to the family, as it would produce children without fathers and
without mothers, and that it represented a frontal attack on the law of
God. In the law - we quote literally - the tail of the serpent can be
seen thanks to the usual telltale signs: hysteria, division, confusion,
envy, it was therefore the war of God.
Another aspect literally forgotten in the twelve years of Bergoglio's
pontificate and which certainly does not link him to the progressive
sectors is was a debate on the "Teologia del pueblo" of which he himself
declared himself a "son" and which was the instrument to defeat the
"Theology of Liberation" in the South American continent.
In 1973 Bergoglio became Provincial of the Jesuits. In those years the
Jesuits, in the Latin American continent, were deeply divided, and a
significant part of them leaned towards the Theology of Liberation.
In this context, Father General Arrupe chose Bergoglio, then 36 years
old, as provincial of the Jesuits. The choice represented a clear
political and ideological sign: Bergoglio was chosen because he was one
of the most convinced representatives of the Teologia del Pueblo,
antithetical to the Theology of Liberation, to which Bergoglio was
always hostile, defining it as "theology of Marxist liberation". In
short, the Teologia del Pueblo is a theology of culture, understood in
its complex of traditions, gestures, rituals, radically "anti-modernist
and anti-progressive". According to Bergoglio, Argentina was in crisis
because it was prey to ideologies foreign to its history, liberalism and
Marxism. The priority, therefore, had to be to protect the way of being
of its "pueblo", the only worthy and authentic representative of the
only Catholic Continent, son of Hispanic Catholicism. In fact, a
national Catholic apotheosis, the triumph of third-worldism in a
reactionary key. Faith and Nation understood by Bergoglio as one thing:
the enemy is the Enlightenment rationality, the liberal claim to
homogenize everything through the economy and culture, the "scientific
and technocratic progressivism" that threatened the "Christian
civilization" and the authentic national values of the "Pueblo".
The last aspect ignored by the media, carefully avoided so as not to
have obstacles in the construction of the myth of Francis, is that
relating to the relations with the Argentine dictatorship. Bergoglio's
silence on this issue is deafening, not a word about the "death flights"
over the ocean, about the involvement of large Italian companies with
the military junta, about the mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
Despite the desire to obscure, his youthful militancy in the "Iron
Guard" group, a supporter of the Peronist right, in which Videla (one of
the three triumvirs of the military junta) also militated, and his
involvement in various episodes, starting with the one involving the two
Jesuits, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were asked to abandon
their work in the shanty towns and leave. When they refused, Bergoglio
excluded them from the Society of Jesus and even had their authorization
to say mass revoked.
It is no coincidence that Bergoglio, a tireless "traveler of the Faith,"
never set foot in Argentina during his papacy and was harshly contested
in Chile during his pastoral visit in 2018, when numerous churches
burned down.
This is a first picture of a reactionary papacy, which will go down in
history as progressive.
Daniele Ratti
https://umanitanova.org/oltre-ogni-narrazione-mediatica-lennesimo-papato-reazionario/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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