with Pope Francis, as with Joe Biden, my frustrations are many but I have NO NOTES when he goes into straight-up “fuck you” mode and I think we’d all like him better if he did it more often
his campaign to dick over all the far right wing cardinals who try and sabotage him brings me real joy
excommunicating the fuckers who won’t respect your duly elected authority because you want to use it on behalf of people they hate, and who have forfeited their right to power because they’re using it to undermine progress, is the energy I wish Democrats would take into the White House JUST ONCE
I think the thing I respect about this the most is the acknowledgment that it’s the cardinal saying “Pope Francis isn’t a real pope because he’s too liberal for my personal tastes” that broke the norms, which means taking action is not just acceptable but the only way to defend the norms
obviously like your mileage may vary as to your own feelings about what those norms ARE (mine, too, are complicated!), but I wish that this energy was transferable to things like impeaching corrupt justices or firing congressional reps who supported an insurrection
nah, it's the correct response.
"you don't recognize my authority? then you are not a priest in my employ anymore. you got your stated goal, you no longer need to listen to me. good luck."
as a Catholic this feels like a proportionate response
this specific guy has been actively attempting to divide the church for years and that’s literally the definition of schism
yeah viganò’s excommunication was latae sententiae, which means automatic/instrinsic to his actions. basically he excommunicated himself (put himself outside communion w the church) by loudly & repeatedly saying “this visible church body is evil and cancerous and i’m not a part of it.” like. okay 👍🏻
first thought was this guy is about to be our problem then i typed "carlo maria viganò +bannon" in the search bar and seems he's been into it for a while now
Yep.
Defrocking offenses don't generally also require excommunication because removal of responsibility does not preclude reconciliation, or the reception of the means thereof.
This high member of the hierarchy of the denomination has done something where you don't get to stay in the denomination.
For a sufficiently hardass identitarian Catholic, who actually doesn't believe anyone else is Christian, excommunication may feel like a claim that they aren't Christian. And it may also have been wielded that way historically! But it's not.
And as a Lutheran, I am well positioned to note that there's a long history of excluded catholics refusing to believe that the administrative exclusion changes their religion.
But we're all still outside their denomination, even though not all of us choose to care about that anymore.
Functionally, and by its canon law intention, excommunication is a last resort, an attempt to bring the problem member to reconciliation. It isn't intended to be final, though in many cases it works out that way, because the excommunicated have no motivation to seek that reconciliation.
(And yeah, most of those instances that I can think of historically come off badly for the institutional church, not going to soft-sell that reality, especially as both a Lutheran and a student of 19th and 20th c. Roman Catholicism. But usually people like Vigano are sectarians and leave without.)
i mean, the dude that won't recognize the pope said his progressive moves weren't catholic, if i remember rightly. and the pope is the authority who sets the "what is a catholic" definition, in my admittedly limited understanding.
so not recognizing the pope as catholic means he can say you aren't.
Good question, but excommunication is actually the less-extreme punishment because excommunication is relatively easy to lift if he repents. It's also the mandatory minimum sentence for his crime, if you will.
If he stays on his BS he will probably be laicized in addition to excommunicated.
It's complicated. Catholics believe that on some level a person's baptism can never be undone. But he's excommunicated, so he's out of communion with the Church and can't receive sacraments.
It gets even worse—laicized priests are actually still priests; they just aren't *clerics*. 1/2