On March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope and took the name Francis. Ten years later, the anniversary of this election was celebrated in a particularly discreet way. The Pope celebrated a private Mass with the cardinals present in Rome, in the chapel of St. Martha’s House, which is his residence.
Vatican Radio and Vatican News broadcast an interview with Francis in which he concluded with his “dream for the Church, the world, those who govern it, and humanity,” summing it up in three words: “fraternity, tears, and smiles.” The Vaticanists have attempted to take stock of the past ten years through a series of doubts and questions that can be reduced to ten questions. Here is the ninth.
9. What is the present state of the Church for a lay person?
Parallel to the confusion felt by the clerics, it is useful to consider the lucid confusion of a layman like Aldo Maria Valli who on March 13 expressed himself on his blog [https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2023/03/13/sui-dieci-anni-di-francesco-201... in these terms: “Bergoglio has succeeded destroying without rebuilding—a beautiful enterprise possible only for certain particularly gifted individuals. He was elected to bring in fresh air. After ten years, the air has become unbreathable.”
“In this context, many people spontaneously regret Benedict XVI, but it must be said clearly: although he was aware of the disaster, Ratzinger was unable to do anything against the drift, because he himself was part of the project of destruction. A project that has a name, the Second Vatican Council, and a precise root: modernism.”
Without irony, the Italian journalist continues: “Paradoxically, we should be grateful to Francis. With his intemperance, he has made it clear to everyone (except, of course, those who do not want to see) what modernism was aiming at and finally achieved: the submission of the Church to the world.”
“If Benedict XVI, with his backtracking, managed at least in part to hide the catastrophe, with Francis everything has become clear: the fluid Catholicism advocated by the modernists has fully conquered the throne of Peter.… The proof? Ask a good Catholic of our time, one who perhaps still goes to Mass regularly, if he believes in the social kingship of Jesus Christ.”
“If he believes that Jesus Christ is indeed the King of all nations and the Lord of the universe. If he believes that He who is the Creator and Redeemer of human nature consequently possesses sovereign power over men, both as individuals and as social communities.”
And his answer: “The Catholic in question will look at you as one would look at a Martian and, assuming he understands your language, he would begin to argue that in reality we need to reconcile the faith with the world, that nothing can be imposed, that we need to dialogue, discern and walk together, that there is religious freedom, that human rights must be taken into account, that there is good in other faiths as well...”
“About a hundred years have gone by, not a thousand, since the popes still proclaimed the social kingship of Christ (the encyclical Quas primas of Pius XI which introduced the solemnity of Christ the King dates from 1925), but we do not keep even a faint memory of that Church and that teaching. The Revolution has penetrated the Church and conquered it from within. The modernist saboteurs have achieved the goal for which they have worked so hard. Man has been put in the place of God.”
