This week, I will join millions of Catholics around the world in celebrating the sacred and ancient rites of the Holy Triduum Masses, culminating in the glorious Easter Vigil Saturday night. However, this year, there is a foreboding pall cast over the usual celebratory mood of many of my fellow Catholics as we worry about the future of the Holy Church we believe Christ personally established on earth.
Whether you are consuming Catholic content from the dynamic and engaging Matt Fradd (Pints with Aquinas on YouTube) or mainstream apologetics from the incredible Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn at Catholic Answers, or the more red-pilled warnings from Patrick Coffin, it is impossible to not recognize the crisis in the Church centered around the sometimes-curious and near-heretical utterances of the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis.
The latest canary in the Catholic coal mine that is currently lying dead at the bottom of its cage is the public statement by Luxenborg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich regarding the Church's teaching on homosexual acts. The Jesuit (it always seems to be the Jesuits) told Germany's Catholic News Agency (KNA) that he did not agree with the Church's teaching and that he believed it needs to be changed.
"I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct," Hollerich said. The cardinal said it was time for a fundamental revision of church teaching, and suggested the way Pope Francis had spoken about homosexuality in the past could lead to a change in doctrine.
Hollerich made his comments in response to the public campaign by 125 Catholic Church employees in Germany who recently outed themselves as queer, saying they want to "live openly without fear" in the church.
It's one thing for a random European Cardinal to trample all over his Apostolic inheritance by making such an un-biblical pronouncement, but Hollerich is not just any Cardinal. He happens to be Francis's hand-picked leader for a worldwide Synod of Bishops which proclaims its mission as to "provide an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern together how to move forward on the path towards being a more synodal Church in the long-term."
This is a way of saying these bishops are meeting to determine recommendations for the Church to grow and evolve in the coming years. The language describing the Synod sounds like it's lifted straight from an American Universities office on intersectionality:
We recall that the purpose of the Synod is not to produce documents, but to plant dreams, draw forth prophecies and visions, allow hope to flourish, inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope, learn from one another and create a bright resourcefulness that will enlighten minds, warm hearts, give strength to our hands.
And the guy Francis has chosen to lead this effort has just proclaimed his disagreement with the Church's traditional teaching on homosexual acts, chastity, gender, and even marriage.
Hollerich is not alone.
Last year, leaders of the Catholic Church in Germany (mostly Jesuits... go figure) defied direct orders from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) and openly blessed same-sex marriages. After the CDF made that ruling, German Bishops' Conference president Bishop Georg Bätzingpublicly defied the instruction and seemed to challenge the authority of the Vatican:
"People in homosexual partnerships want the blessing of the church, one that is not concealed," Bätzing, who also leads the Diocese of Limburg, told the German newspaper group RND. "They want the church to hold their life in such value that they are given the blessing of God and not denied it."
"We must face up to this wish," said the prelate. "For this we need an intense confrontation. We can no longer answer these questions with a simple 'yes' or 'no.' This is not possible."
"I believe that we must evaluate homosexuality and life partnerships outside of marriage in a new way," said Bätzing. "We can no longer go on the assumption of natural law alone, but must think much more strongly in such categories as caring and responsibility for one another."
You'll notice a consistent theme in all of these Cardinal's declarations that the Church must change her teaching on sex and morality: None of them cite Holy Scripture or Holy Tradition as a basis for their positions. It's always framed with "I believe..." rather than "Scripture says..." or "The Church has always held..."
Earlier whispered concerns over Pope Francis's public utterances and undisciplined musings that appeared to fly in the face of thousands of years of tradition have now been amplified and mainstreamed. Catholics are openly pondering whether their pontiff is dancing up to the border of heresy or, possibly even worse, turning a blind eye to heresy within his ranks.
Watch this short clip of a fantastic conversation between Fradd and Catholic Theologian Dr. Ralph Martin regarding yet another German Cardinal, Reinhard Marx, who just celebrated a "Queer Mass" celebrating 20 years of LGBTQ ministry.
Through all of this scandal and heresy, Pope Francis remains silent. He allows this to go on, and he refuses to speak out. His silence, at this point, can only be interpreted as consent. But, to what end?
The lack of leadership and direction has opened the door for the laity to ponder aloud whether this Pope is even the legitimate occupant of St. Peter's Throne.
Coffin, the former moderator of Catholic Answers' incredibly influential podcast and radio program Catholic Answers Live, recently rocked the Catholic media world with a video podcast proclaiming he had evidence that Francis was a usurper... an "Anti-Pope," and that Benedict XVI is still the legitimate pontiff.
His thesis is that the unprecedented nature of Benedict's resignation, along with overt politicking before the conclave that elected Francis renders the pontificate null and void. That politicking, by the way, was conducted by none other than the German Cardinals referenced above.
Watch the video yourself to understand the breadth of Coffin's argument...
I warn you... this ends up being quite a rabbit hole. So much so that I've jokingly called Coffin's line of reasoning "Pope Anon," but any Catholic witnessing what is going on with the Church can be forgiven for grasping at any explanation to reason away what is plainly and sadly entirely unreasonable.
As a Catholic, I have always felt confident knowing that the Pope and the Church's teaching was protected by the Holy Spirit and Christ's personal assurance that "the gates of hell would not prevail" against them. These days, like most Catholics, that confidence is a little weaker, thanks to Francis.
I don't go so far as to agree with Coffin that Francis is not the legitimate Pope. Indeed, I believe that Francis is the Pope, and yet, he allows this chaos to unfold on a daily basis when he could speak out and do something about it.
Francis is the Pope... and, unfortunately, I think that's the real problem.