At Settimo Cielo long time vaticanista Sandro Magister posted something that should make everyone stop, breathe for a while, and consider options.

Context: In October there will be a meeting of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, during which the Church is supposed to learn about spirituality of trees and insects and the ways of tribes in touch with nature.

The Synod will be a pry bar into the core of priesthood.

The fact that there is a shortage of priests is an excuse to overturn the Church’s understanding of priesthood.

Some are straining against the gate, hammers and prybars in restless hands.

NB: It is important to watch carefully what is going on in the Church in Italy. You find in Italy signals about what is going on behind the scenes in Rome.

Let’s see some of this (my emphases):

In the Amazon Married Deacons Are Already Saying Mass. And the Pope Knows It For a few days a video has been circulating on the web in which an Italian priest of the highest rank, among those closest to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, says that in the Amazon the celebration of the Mass by married deacons is already a de facto reality, authorized by the local bishops. And Pope Francis, informed of the matter, is alleged to have said:”Go ahead!” The author of this revelation is not just anybody. He is Giovanni Nicolini, 79, an esteemed priest of the archdiocese of Bologna, which has as its archbishop that Matteo Zuppi whom a few days ago Francis promoted as cardinal. Fr. Nicolini is currently a national ecclesiastical assistant of the Catholic Associations of Italian Workers, ACLI, and was previously director of Caritas of Bologna, in addition to being a parish priest in the neighborhood next to the prison. A priest of the poor, of the imprisoned, of the immigrants: this is his best-known profile. But even before this he was a spiritual son of Giuseppe Dossetti (1913-1996), a leading politician in postwar Italy and then, as monk and priest, a protagonist of Vatican Council II along with Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro. [A key player, with Bugnini, in the systematic undermining of the Roman Rite prosecuted in the name of Vatican II.] In the footsteps of Dossetti, Fr. Nicolini founded in the 1970’s the Family of the Visitation, a community now made up of around thirty monks and nuns and as many married couples, divided between the countryside of Bologna and the archdiocesan missions in Tanzania and Jerusalem. Moreover, Fr. Nicolini is connected to that influential progressive Catholic think tank known as the “school of Bologna,” which had its founder in the same Dossetti and has in Church historian Alberto Melloni and in Bose monastery founder Enzo Bianchi its current mainstays and gurus, both of them ultra-Bergoglians. [Bose monastery… see below!] So here is a link to Fr. Nicolini’s shocking video:



> “Sento l’opportunità di ricordare…”[In Italian] The video is part of a broader “lesson” by Fr. Nicolini, it too recorded, at the summer school of the political-cultural Catholic association La Rosa Bianca, held in Terzolas, Trentino from August 21 to 25. And the following is an exact transcription of his words concerning the celibacy of the clergy and the “Masses” that already are said to be celebrated by married deacons in the Amazon, with the authorization of the local bishops and the support of Pope Francis. * AND THE POPE SAID: “GO AHEAD!” I feel it is fitting to recall, together with you, that the Church of priests is coming to an end. Is this a prophecy? […]

Let’s connect some dots.

Right now there is a systematic effort on the part of the New catholic Red Guards to slander, intimidate and silence anyone who offers an observation or criticism of any kind whatsoever about the radical changes being made even to Catholic teaching during this pontificate. This is going on across various language groups, and representatives from various languages are getting more organized. They are coordinating.

A dot to connect.

Professional self-promoter, bomb-throwing strawman-stuffer Massimo “Beans” Faggioli tweeted”

I owe so much spiritually and intellectually to the Community of Bose https://t.co/jvjbrII3Bc — Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) September 6, 2019

Bose (Bo-zay) is – sort of – like an Italian Taize. There is a breathy piece about it at Commonwelt. HERE The community has roots in a post-Conciliar leveling ecumenism which cherry picks elements of different traditions. I don’t understand their canonical, ecclesiastical status. They are doing their own thing and, a while back, a bishop said, “Okay.” Their site says:

The Monastic Community of Bose was canonically approved by a decree dated 11 July 2000 of the Bishop of Biella, Massimo Giustetti, who also approved its statute and the monastic rule that went with it. The present Ordinary, Bishop Gabriele Mana, confirmed the above status of juridical person and approved modifications to the statute in a decree dated 29 June 2010. The monastic rule was approved by Cardinal Michele Pellegrino of Turin on the occasion of the profession of the first seven brothers, 23 April 1973, and was confirmed by his successor, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero on 6 August 1978.

It seems to me that this community – a private association of the faithful – is all about a version of Christianity that tends toward a “one world religion” with some Catholic elements that they like. It’s generic, a strain of “mere Christianity” somewhat attached to Catholicism and Catholic roots but less intellectually than, say, the Touchstone folks. It is, perhaps, driven by sentimentalism and a kind of Italian “contempt” for the Church that arises from “familiarity”. It is a kind of Catholic-lite place, with Eastern touches and a little bit of Woodstock and new-agey Findhorn. I’m not sure what Protestants contribute. They have a meaningful bell named after Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Eucharist” is mentioned on their site, but so sparsely that it seems a purposeful avoidance. I think it might be Mass, but I am not sure. There are Catholic priests there, so I guess there is Mass. Who receives Communion? Everyone? Anyone?

Quite a lot of money circulates around the place it seems. But all the people in the community seem to work for a living or make things which are sold, which is admirable. They are making a go of it by work and some sort of prayer.

I would note that Rome seems to embrace this model, but it crushed the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and those sisters in France who took care of the poor because they were too traditional.

This is something that Beans is really into: “I owe so much spiritually and intellectually to the Community of Bose.”

UPDATE:

And minutes before I posted this, Beans tweeted:

La chiesa dei preti sta finendo https://t.co/ndGHAnzNCU di @YouTube — Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) September 10, 2019

A central motivation of the Protestant Revolt in the 16th century and onward was precisely the destruction of the priesthood.