Photo of the Week

Francis the demolisher

Riding an enormous metal ball used to demolish buildings, Pope Francis is pictured on the cover of the German weekly magazine Die Weltwoche – The World's Week – in its recent issue n. 14. The wrecking ball is in the process of hitting church buildings that are already half-broken. The headlines of the cover read: The Pope cleans up – Spontaneous Francis collides with the Church.

The cartoon and headlines illustrate an article by Matthias Matussek – "All Sorts of Things about the Pope" (Papst Allerlei) – analyzing the destructive work of Pope Francis.

Matussek points out his many innovations: the bad language Francis introduced in his speeches; the contradictions in his statements; his personal offenses to the Curia; his persecution of his enemies, namely Cardinals Burke and Sarah; his lax zero tolerance policy regarding pedophile priests, his mistaken idea that a Pope should be concerned about opinion polls instead of defending dogma.

The article also criticizes the "sloppy, drastic and reckless" way Francis is dealing with morals, giving as examples the criticism he made of large families that "multiply like rabbits" and his recent invitation to Paul Ehrlich – a known abortionist – to deliver a speech at the Vatican. Similarly censured is his approach to homosexuality. "Has the Pope gone crazy?" asks the essayist of Weltwoche, echoing a question of the English Spectator.

No, he is not a madman, he has an agenda, concludes Matussek. An agenda to destroy the Una, Sancta, Catholica Ecclesia. He shows how the Pope is doing so through his encyclicals, his actions and the destruction of the Mass of Trent – following the plan of Vatican II.

The article ends politely, quoting a text of St. Paul to the Pope, in which the Apostle tells Timothy to proclaim the truth whether it is popular or not.

It is comforting to see that, coming from a completely different perspective than ours at TIA, the journalist of Weltwoche nonetheless sees the reality in a way quite similar to ours.

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Posted April 23, 2017

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