29 July 2018

Livi: A window into the mindset of dissident Roman Catholics


The linked article by Andrea Tornielli rejects the views of Vatican critic Antonio Livi but nevertheless provides significant insight into both the mindset of dissidents like Livi and how conservatives in the mainstream might criticise thinkers like him. Overall I found it a very informative read.
Growing numbers of conservatives are concerned about Bergoglio-Francis to be sure but the real divide continues to be over the Vatican councils and their legacy.


There are also continuing divisions over what used to be called Americanism. Essentially this is Rome's battle with Classical Liberalism and just that quick we are moving back into the debates of the 19th century and disputes over the Vatican's posture vis-à-vis modernity and the birth of what has come to be called Catholic Social Teaching. Livi represents not only a rejection of Vatican II but in many ways a revivification of the debates of Vatican I and the struggles of Roman Catholicism in the latter part of the 19th century. While Vatican I sought to carve out something of a survival niche for the Papacy in light of its massive political defeats, Vatican II sought to make peace with the modern world and (through the ideas of men like Rahner, Congar and Küng) all but re-cast the very nature of Romanism. The first half of the 20th century was so tumultuous and so much (it seemed) had changed that the older debates no longer seemed relevant. Vatican II was an attempt to bring a new/old Church to the world. In another sense while Vatican I was defensive, the Second Council was the Roman Church on the offense. It hoped that it could reach the modern world with a modernised gospel message and thus it could be sustained and effectively re-born and rescued from its season of sharp decline. Evangelisation was the new order of the day and thus the age of the globe-trotting popes began.
While Livi's narrative and criticisms are (from a certain point of view) coherent, one wonders if it is even more difficult for present day conservatives (like the article's author Tornielli) to maintain the somewhat difficult narrative necessitated by granting legitimacy to Vatican II?
While someone like Livi might (in theory) approve of ultramontanism's Vatican I victory, it has proven to be something of a double-edged sword. In the wrong hands it could wreak havoc as indeed it did in John XXIII's Vatican II project. Now, trembling, Livi and many other conservatives eagerly await the termination of the Francis papacy. Until he's removed they fear that he will use his office to further the agenda of the liberals... the heretics and wicked men Livi speaks of.
Obviously as a non-Roman Catholic my interest is limited and somewhat distant and yet I cannot help but follow these debates. Rome in all it horrid spiritual malformation is nevertheless a force to be reckoned with and one that increasingly influences the ever apostate minds of Western Evangelicals.
Are modern conclaves orchestrated? Livi has upset many within Rome but perhaps this charge earns him the greatest ire, the suggestion that the selection of the pope is a corrupted process... a notion that would seemingly validate his suggestions of illegitimacy and thus the heresy of all post-Vatican II popes.
Some conclaves have probably been orchestrated, others have certainly been manipulated.
In the wake of World War II the US Deep State established extensive ties with the Vatican, though formal recognition would not come until the Reagan presidency. The CIA collaborated with the Vatican during the Cold War in funding everything from political dissidents to Right-wing paramilitaries and coups d'état. The IOR or Vatican Bank was a centre of money laundering and black budgets. Many of these secrets were brought to light in the wake of the scandals that erupted in the early 1980's.
Various sectors of the US government and in particular intelligence agencies also underwent something of a transformation in the wake of the WWII as Catholics became prominent, rivalling and in some cases surpassing the Waspy Ivy League Establishment.
We know the US 'bugged' the Vatican for decades and conservatives in the US were clearly unhappy with John XXIII and John Paul I. Many believe John Paul I was murdered and that the selection of Karol Wojtyla was a political move meant to fire a shot at Moscow.
And yet obviously either this manipulative ability 'waned' in light of the Cold War's end or the control is not as absolute and pervasive as some think. Clearly the conservatives in the Church did not want to see Francis elected and yet the jury is still out (to some degree) on just who Bergoglio is and what he stands for. Some conservatives were at first pleased with his change of style and despite the angst he hasn't changed any official doctrine. And yet his tone and trajectory have many worried and some fear he has opened a Pandora's Box which will not be easily remedied.
Siding with none, Biblical Christians can and should continue to observe these developments. They're affecting everything from geopolitics to the trajectory of American Evangelicalism.

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