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A book about the Church
and the time we live in
Translated from
August 12, 2017
Today, I wish to talk about a book that is harsh and difficult as was – and is – the life of its author Danilo Quinto. Who lived much of his life in Italy's very anti-Catholic Partito Radicale and then underwent a profound conversion. Which led him to write his first book entitled “Da servo di Pannella a figlio libero di Dio – Dalla più formidabile the macchina mangiasoldi della partitocrazia italiana per arrivare a Cristo” (From being a servant of Pannella to a free son of God: Out of the most formidable cash-guzzling machine in Italy's party system to arrive at Christ), with a Preface by Mons. Luigi Negri, who was at the time Bishop of Ferrara. [Pannella was the longtime leader of the Radical Party, pro-actively espousing all the progressivist anti-Catholic social causes (abortion, contraception, euthanasia, same-sex 'marriage'), and whose death last year occasioned a fulsome unconditional and unapologetic eulogy from the verminous Mons. Paglia, president of Bergoglio's Pontifical Academy for Life.]
His new book is “Disorientamento pastorale. La fallacia umanistica al posto della verità rivelata?” (Pastoral disorientation: The humanistic fallacy in place of revealed truth?), with a theological introduction by Mons. Antonio Livi. [Born 1938, Livi is a philosopher-priest who has written some 35 books since 1969, an expert on St Thomas Aquinas, and a pupil of Etienne Gilson, 1884-1978, the French philosopher who, with Jacques Maritain and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, was considered the leading exponents of neo-Thomism.]
Livi's introduction is entitled "What is happening with Pope Francis?"
Because, Livi notes, the freewheeling language of the Pope and his nonchalance in speaking about major issues to newsmen and foreigners have resulted in that many statements and initiative of this pope
"..are seen by public opinion as a radical reform, if not a true revolution, of the Catholic Church, with the apparent rejection of the Magisterium before Vatican II, the systematic adoption of the language of theological progressivism, and the definitive rejection of proclaiming the Gospel in dogmatic terms".
We know [or ought to know] that not everything said by this pope is necessarily authentic Magisterium, but the words of Bergoglio are interpreted [and reported] through generally anti-Catholic media (i.e., virtually all media) as expressions that radically re-formulate Christian doctrine".
Wherefore the discomfiture and disorientation, ever more palpable, among the 'faithful on the street' – and in this, Danilo Quinto's book is very well documented and rich in citations and references. Not only to the more or less surprising and spontaneous pronouncements of the reigning pope, but also, in counterpoint, to what Church scholars, previous popes, Doctors of the Church, and saints have said about each topic he speaks on.
Personally, I find the book very valuable but depressing. Depressing because what happens day to day usually erases recollection even of recent events, [and in a man who is relentless about making new pronouncements daily] this keeps most people from remembering earlier statements and actions that caused them to be puzzled or confused from a pope in whom prudence and considered judgment are not the most evident of virtues.
"In full conscience", Quinto writes, "I can say that every day – even in his daily homilettes – the pope uses language which lends itself to ambiguity and generates confusion about the doctrines of the Catholic Church".
The list is long. Episodes, statements of position, praises (including that for Emma Bonino, whom Quinto knows very well, having worked with her for years and years in the Partito Radicale, praise for the Grande Dame of Italian Abortionists being just one example of Bergoglio's, shall we say, 'ingenuity'), problematic interpretations of the Gospel – the list is so long that it's beyond enumerating in a column.
But Quinto's book is one that is well worth reading, even allowing for certain expressions that come ex abundantia cordis (out of the abundance of the heart), which, knowing the price Quinto had to pay for breaking out of the Partito Radicale and converting to Catholicism, we can certainly allow him.
Earlier, Maurizio Blondet called the attention of his blog followers to Quinto's book, seeking to describe the context of how the Church has come to where we are today in terms of dpctrine and pastoral practice:
For many years, Catholic theology, stunted by idealistic historicism, had been stripping the essential logical and metaphysical coordinates from Christian dogma, and with those, the very idea of revealed truth, replacing it with the dialectic of human progress and social reform.
The divine message of Redemption offered by Christ had been gradually replaced by the illusion of atheistic humanism which imagines that contemporary man no longer needs salvation because he has become capable of transcending himself and realizing Paradise on earth all on his own.
From Vatican-II onwards, this false theology has progressively penetrated even the language of the Church magisterium (which has become increasingly rhetorical and affective instead of remaining rational and doctrinal).
It has led many bishops and even the current pope to a pastoral praxis that seems aimed at a systematic "overcoming and rejection" of Tradition, especially where it concerns values that are genuinely supernatural ['Superhuman' is perhaps the better word, though Christian values, however, difficult to live by, are within the reach of every man with the help of God's grace.] And this rejection of traditional values is precisely characteristic of the secular humanism that is now dominant in Western culture.
Therefore, the inevitable consequence is the mass disorientation of the ordinary faithful who no longer see in their pastors – now openly divided on the reasons and objectives of doctrinal, disciplinary and liturgical reforms – spiritual guidance that is universal and consistent.
In Quinto's booklength essay, the situation in which the Catholic Church now finds itself with respect to the relationship between the Church's pastors and the faithful is illustrated with a careful documentation of the pontificate of Pope Francis, 'the pope of the people', as the mass media around the world call him (and the title of a film about him that was recently released).
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