Since the beginning of the 21st century, to use an emblematic date, thanks to all the mass media, we can obtain immediate information about almost everything that happens in the world. This becomes more evident with the great characters in vogue today; such is the case with Pope Francis, who was disguised as an Indian in Canada when he went to ask forgiveness for the crimes committed by the Church between 1910 and 1945. The worst of them all was to have taken children from the arms of their Indian parents to indoctrinate them in Catholicism and the French language, in asylums and schools for the poor.
The greatest achievement of the anti-Christian propaganda, which has been going on for a long time, is to make the Catholic conscience believe that it is responsible for all the evils of the modern world: pedophilia, perversions, corruption, exploitation, violence against women, etc. And it has just obtained from the Pope himself an international pardon for regrettable, but relative, not absolute, facts.
After asking for such a pardon, in that same act, he should have spoken about the word of eternal life which is Christ as salvation of every man (Indian, or not). However, he abandoned his function and task and joined the worldwide anti-Catholic propaganda. There was not even a word about the holy Bishop Laval who converted that country.
It is true that no one can give what he does not have, and this poor Pope, lacking a solid theological formation, behaves more like a sociologist, while he ignores the world of the sacred. Surely, he must have continued to speak of Christ in private; but that conversation did not reach the immense mass of the world’s population. And therefore, it does not exist.
Canadians in particular will have been left thinking that the Catholic Church is crap, that the priests are a bunch of rapists and the nuns are perverts; that the Indians are a marvel, and that Argentinian are moron, who come out to ask for forgiveness for acts they did not commit. Or is the Pope not Argentinian?
When Bergoglio was elected Pope, I wrote an article and recorded a video entitled, “An Argentine Pope mamma mía.” And I was not wrong.
He can ask for forgiveness from the whole world—from the Wailing Wall in Israel, to the concentration camps, to the Indians in Canada; he can bless homosexual marriages; he can shut his mouth to Catholic Joe Biden who is a blatant abortionist, and he can give communion to a divorced president, abortionist and habitual liar—all of which will give him credit in the mass media. But what he cannot do is to recover the sacredness of the Church. That he cannot do, because he ignores the sacred; and as I said before, no one can give what he does not have.
The Church has entered into a process of decadence which, in order not to go too far back, can be traced back to the end of the pontificate of Pius XII (1958). She held a council, Vatican II (1962-1965), which was intended to be pastoral and which ended up being dogmatic. The old liturgy, the old dogmas and the old customs disappeared, giving way to indeterminate principles, uses and customs, to a relativism that allows anything to be done. In short, it has become a kind of great “orange grove” where each Catholic chooses the orange he prefers. The Yankees call it “Catholic cafe,” and that is probably more appropriate than the phrase “orange grove.”
Catholics are convinced that nothing can happen to the Church because the Holy Spirit assists her. And in the meantime, as they say in Spanish, ajo y agua (a joderse y aguantarse)—you got screwed—deal with it.
Alberto Buela is an Argentinian philosopher and professor at National Technological University and the University of Barcelona. He is the author of many books and articles.