SARTO, SI; RAMPOLLA, NO

Sarto, aka Pope St Pius X

Cardinal Rampolla, almost a Pope

The villains are busy.

They are all staking their claims and making their demands and veiled threats. It grows more amusing every day if one forgets the seriousness of the state we are in.  Let us take a brief survey.

The worldwide media (and let us never forget the telling fact that the world’s major media is controlled by, essentially, six or seven people) is letting the Church know what’s in store for Her if a courageous, strong-willed Pope emerges from the Conclave.  They are discreetly signaling a non-stop media attack.

The Modernists in the Church are letting us know what kind of a man they want to have: one that will continue the “legacy” of post-Conciliar Catholicism, which presumably means chaos, scandal and financial catastrophe, coupled with doctrinal ambiguity and more liturgical banalities.

The Lavender Mafia is not exactly hiding its special brand of nasty little threats.  Disgraced Archbishop Rembert Weakland is an excellent source of information on this unpleasant subject.  That he is still a Bishop “in good standing” even now and with nary a peep from Rome does seem to indicate, as one perceptive writer noted, that "he knows where all the bodies are buried".

The everlastingly unsatisfied Jews are making it clear with honeyed phrases that the new Pope had better be putting their concerns at the top of his agenda from the moment the white smoke appears from the Vatican chimney.  

The painted harridans and trulls who make up many of the female religious orders aren’t keeping their hopes for the next Papacy under their hats (I was going to say wimples, but that sort of thing went out with kneeling).  

The blacks have been demanding one of their own in the papacy, apparently, as if the Vicar of Christ is to be chosen along equal opportunity rules established by the Stupidocracy.  (Cardinal Turkson seems to be thinking along similar lines.)  Now that they’ve got a president why not a Pope, too?

The average go-with-the-flow Catholics being interviewed by the local TV news readers at their parish bingo games are offering their valuable and insightful recommendations as to who should be Christ’s Vicar on earth.  One such lady in Milwaukee on camera suggested, between mouthfuls of chicken, that Dolan is the right man for the job.

The Left wing in Europe has their candidate, the Vienna balloon Cardinal, Christoph von Schonborn. 

Other Catholics, of the supercilious "neo-Catholic" variety, who have grown comfortable with the pervading chaos, are offering their strong suggestions, which can be boiled down to a simple “Let’s stay right where we are”.

Surely the Las Vegas betting barons are even now preparing their odds sheets.

Finally we have to realize with horror that some very dicey Cardinals will be entering that conclave, Cardinals who are, to put it charitably, a little fuzzy about what constitutes Catholicity. [This just in: Cardinal Keith O'Brien says the new Pope should let priests marry.  Another solid thinker enters the Conclave!] The list would include Cardinals Kasper, Levada, Re, Lehmann, Schonborn, Wuerl, Mahony and even jolly Timothy Dolan who to this day is still permitting a special homosexual-friendly “Mass” in New York.  (There are some good men in that group, too.  May they and the hand of God prevail.)

No one knows how this will turn out.  I certainly don’t.  But I know this is not the time for complacency, or in sitting back and “letting God take care of it”.  I am troubled by the non-serious attitude being displayed on so many Catholic websites and blogs about this grave situation, an attitude which can be described as a sort of cheerful expectation akin to a US presidential election.  Is there no one recommending falling upon one's knees in earnest supplication to Our Lord that He will have mercy on his suffering Church and send us the man needed to clean up this mess?  Are we all simply presuming upon God's mercy?  Alas, there is no ironclad guarantee that I am aware of that the man who emerges from the Conclave will be God’s choice.  Unless I am very much mistaken the election of a Supreme Pontiff is not an infallible act protected by the Holy Ghost.  In 2,000 years we have had great Popes, average Popes, weak Popes and a few outright bad apples.  We could get an Arius.  To be sure God can act to prevent the election of a candidate whose occupancy of Peter’s Chair would have been a disaster for His Church, as the famous case of Cardinal Rampolla indicates.  In that case the electors chose Rampolla, but God chose Sarto, who became Pope St Pius X.  Can we just presume God will so act again? 

I do not believe this is the time for playing guessing games as to who will walk out onto that Vatican balcony, or in silly discussions about what skin color the new Pope might have.  I believe that we are already one week into Lent and that if we haven’t yet begun to offer our Lenten penances for the intention that God spare us from a Rampolla and give us instead another Sarto then we had best start now. 

I am at a loss to know what more people would have to see happening in and to God's Church before they begin to realize that the situation is dire.  We now witness the spectacle of the German Bishops approving the "morning after pill" for rape victims (we also await Benedict's authoritative response to this outrage), with all the usual fog-laden language that has become the norm since "the Council".

Is the stench at last becoming noticeable?