Young Priests Observant on Francis – Abp. Diarmuid Martin criticizes them

Excerpts from the Tablet

Pope Francis’ courage is causing disquiet among those with “a very conformist and closed Catholicism” the Archbishop of Dublin has warned.

… The young priest felt they “were not in line with what he had learned in the seminary” [he is right!] and he suggested that they were “making the faithful insecure and even encouraging those who do not hold the orthodox Catholic beliefs to challenge traditional teaching.”

The archbishop warned conservative and progressive Catholics against becoming “closed in” within our own ideas. He also acknowledged that Irish Catholicism had a strong tradition of strict teaching.

Fr. Z has commentary on this here. A brief excerpt:

They didn’t, I notice, find a priest on the other side of the issue, a conservative or traditional priest, to react.   Conservatives get an additional pounding, but the progressives?  They get a pass.

Meanwhile, Ireland’s seminaries are empty. [by their fruit you will know them]

Read it all at the Tablet and at Fr. Z.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein ‘tried to stop Benedict resigning’

From The Tablet (UK)

Gänswein ‘tried to stop Benedict resigning’

11 October 2013

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the personal secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, says he tried to persuade Benedict to stay on and continue his work as Pope.

Asked in an interview in the German weekly Bunte whether then Pope Benedict had talked to him about his intention to resign, Archbishop Gänswein said he had known about the Pope’s intention for “quite some time beforehand” and had tried to change his mind, but failed. “Pope Benedict had reached a decision. He was not to be shaken”, he said.

The VatiLeaks affair in which private documents were leaked to the press had nothing to do with Benedict’s decision, Archbishop Gänswein insisted. He had come to the conclusion that he lacked the necessary strength to go on leading the Church in such turbulent times and that “a new, strong helmsman was required to take control of the situation”.

Asked how close the relationship between Pope Francis and his predecessor was, Archbishop Gänswein differences lay in certain matters of style and taste but not in matters of faith.

The biggest difference between them was the way they approached people, Archbishop Gänswein said. Pope Francis walked straight up to people and loved to embrace everyone while Pope Benedict was more reticent, loved peace and quiet and tended to withdraw from crowds, he said.

[See the prophecies about this “resignation”]