CV NEWS FEED // The Italian Conservative Catholic website “New Daily Compass” published on February 29 what it claims to be a letter from an anonymous Cardinal addressed to his peers regarding the urgent priorities to be considered at a forthcoming conclave.
The document, published exclusively by the New Daily Compass in six languages, claims to be written by a cardinal after collating “suggestions of other cardinals and bishops.”
The document highlights that Pope Francis’s pontificate has “given to compassion toward the weak, outreach to the poor and marginalized, concern for the dignity of creation and the environmental issues that flow from it, and efforts to accompany the suffering and alienated in their burdens….”
However, the document claims that “its shortcomings are equally obvious: an autocratic, at times seemingly vindictive, style of governance; a carelessness in matters of law; an intolerance for even respectful disagreement; and – most seriously – a pattern of ambiguity in matters of faith and morals causing confusion among the faithful.”
The letter is signed by “Demos II,” in direct reference to a harshly critical assessment of Pope Francis’ Pontificate signed by “Demos” and published by noted Italian Vaticanist Sandro Magister in March 2022. That document, titled “The Vatican Today,” was highly critical of the pontificate of Pope Francis, and was later revealed that the original author was the late Australian Cardinal George Pell.
According to the New Daily Compass, this new commentary under the pen name “Demos II” “intends to build on those original reflections in light of the needs of the Vatican tomorrow.”
According to “Demos II,” the task of the next pontificate must be “one of recovery and reestablishment of truths that have been slowly obscured or lost among many Christians. These include but are not limited to such basics as the following:
(a) no one is saved except through, and only through, Jesus Christ, as he himself made clear;
(b) God is merciful but also just, and is intimately concerned with every human life, He forgives but He also holds us accountable, He is both Savior and Judge;
(c) man is God’s creature, not a self-invention, a creature not merely of emotion and appetites but also of intellect, free will, and an eternal destiny;
(d) unchanging objective truths about the world and human nature exist and are knowable through Divine Revelation and the exercise of reason;
(e) God’s Word, recorded in Scripture, is reliable and has permanent force;
(f) sin is real and its effects are lethal; and
(g) his Church has both the authority and the duty to “make disciples of all nations.” The failure to joyfully embrace that work of missionary, salvific love has consequences. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.”
From this set of priorities, the anonymous author presents seven “practical observations,” related to each challenge.
Among them, the document highlights that
the Church is a community not just of Word and sacrament, but also of creed. What we believe helps to define and sustain us. Thus, doctrinal issues are not burdens imposed by unfeeling “doctors of the law.” Nor are they cerebral sideshows to the Christian life. On the contrary, they’re vital to living a Christian life authentically, because they deal with applications of the truth, and the truth demands clarity, not ambivalent nuance.
The author finally observes that “[readers] will quite reasonably ask why this text is anonymous. The answer should be evident from the tenor of today’s Roman environment: Candor is not welcome, and its consequences can be unpleasant.”
“And yet these thoughts could continue for many more paragraphs,” the text concludes,
noting especially the current pontificate’s heavy dependence on the Society of Jesus, the recent problematic work by the DDF’s Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, and the emergence of a small oligarchy of confidants with excessive influence within the Vatican – all despite synodality decentralizing claims, among other things.
The post Letter of Alleged Anonymous Cardinal Proposes Critical Agenda for Next Conclave appeared first on CatholicVote org.