Bergoglianity and Scripture

In three short posts, Fr Hunwicke examines Francis's and the modernists' cavalier view of Holy Scripture and their disregard for the principles of sound textual criticism. 

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

Bergoglianity and Scripture (1)

For many generations of Anglicans, the Second Sunday in Advent was 'Bible Sunday'. This is because of a rather over-wrought Proddy interpretation of the Epistle; which is shared by the book of Common Prayer, and the edition of the Roman Rite issued by S Pius V; Romans 15:4sqq. But it is as good a Sunday as any to consider the relationship of PF with Holy Scripture.

[Preliminary Note for those who need to know what "textual criticism" is: contrary to popular assumptions, textual criticism is the science ... or art ... of reconstructing what an ancient text "originally" said. Before the invention of printing, when manuscripts were copied by hand, changes crept in. Scribal mistakes ... scribal improvements ... scribal harmonisations (when S Mark's text differed from S Matthew's, scribes very often brought  S Mark into line with S Matthew, which they probably knew better). The textual critic assembles the evidence: the different 'readings' in the different manuscripts or early translations or quotations in early Christian writers. Then s/he uses a variety of (mainly linguistic) tools to work out which 'reading' s/he deems "original".]

Popes have long intervened in making decisions which touch upon the text and Canon of Scripture. A distinguished codicologist has argued that the "Four Gospel Canon" was set in place circa 100 ... in Rome. When the Vulgate was authorised, implicit approval was thereby given to the the readings preferred by S Jerome. During the Counter-Reformation, Pope Sixtus V in 1590, then Pope Clement VIII in 1592, officially established (unidentical) texts of the Vulgate. This meant that, where different manuscripts had different ('variant') readings, an official decision was made about which should be used. The popes were not claiming to know what the 'original writers' 'originally' wrote; they were claiming only to provide a usable and safe and orthodox text for private ... and, more importantly ... public use.

During the current supremacy of Bergoglianity, two constructive changes have been made in Scripture. They involve changes in words ascribed to the Lord in the Gospels, in places where there are no textual variants in the manuscripts. Moreover, these are texts used daily by millions of Catholics.

 (1) In the accounts of the Last Supper, the Lord offered the Chalice of His Blood which had been poured out "for many" (peri pollon). In a number of European languages, including the Italian, which the arrogant current boss-class in the Vatican seems to regard as normative, we are offered "per tutti" ("for all": in Latin it would be pro omnibus; in Greek, peri panton).

(2) In both the Matthaean and Lucan texts of the Our Father, et ne nos inducas in tentationem is is now to be rendered e non abbandonarci alla tentazione. I presume that in Latin that would be et ne nos derelinquas tentationi; in Greek, perhaps, Kai me katalipe hemas toi peirasmoi..

I repeat: there is no evidence in the Manuscripts ... all the thousands of them ... or in the Versions ... or in the Patristic citations ... for these tinkerings. 

Textual Criticism can do nothing to back up PF.

To be continued.

Bergoglianity and Scripture (2)

Looked at from the point of view of somebody not terribly literate, these alterations in the inspired texts are easy to understand. Why should we imply that the Almighty himself actually leads us into temptation? The answer (in my view the correct one) is that temptation, peirasmos, does not here mean that nasty little voice within us which tempts us to eat the last chocolate in the box while nobody is watching, but means Persecution; the 'testing' to which we are subjected when we are being persecuted ... when our Faith is being put to the test. 

But, be that as it may, I prefer the advice given in Liturgiam authenticam, that admirable and scholarly document on the methodology of liturgical translation put out in the pontificate of S John Paul. It is now sneered at by the sort of people who have filled up the offices of the Congregation for Worship after the ejection of scholars and academics. It points out that, when there is doubt about which of more than one interpretation of a Latin text is preferable, it is best to go for a fairly literal rendering of the original which leaves each option open and available. 

This is, of course, exactly the sort of open-minded preference for liberty which so runs against the grain of Bergoglianity.

And the rendering of "for many" as "for all" illustrates this. 'Many' can mean 'for a lot' or it can mean 'not for all'. My own view is that the Lord is proclaiming the availability of the Salvation he brings is for absolutely everybody. All they need to do is to 'receive' him and to 'believe on his name'. I do not believe that the Lord has removed from any human heart the faculty of rejecting him.

The problem here for many traddies is that "for all" appears to select and impose the notion that every human will ultimately be saved ... you might call this "Universalism". I rather sympathise with their suspicion in this regard.

There is a very amusing whimsicality here. In one of its Offertory prayers, the Authentic Use of the Roman Rite does indeed pray that the Chalice may be accepted "pro nostra et totius mundi salute". But the Vandals ... or was it the Visigoths ... of the 1960s chopped that out! 

In other words, the Modernists of the 1960s were convinced that the vera et certa utilitas Ecclesiae demanded (exigat) that this prayer be excised (Sacrosanctum Concilium 23). Half a century later, the Bergoglianists, the Modernists of our own time, are convinced that the idea be shoved back in ... so strongly convinced that they cheerfully mutilate the Lord's words in order to do so!

To be concluded.

Bergoglianity and Scripture (3)

Never before has a Roman Pontiff claimed the right to bowdlerise the text of Holy Scripture so as to make it fit his own ideas.

The game is made even nastier when the monstrously mendacious claim is advanced that this is just a matter of 'correcting the translation'. 

And there are, surely, ecumenical considerations. PF has recently been to Greece and Cyprus; at least in the latter of these two countries, he once again spoke about "complete Unity". But what on earth can he mean by this? If he has in mind such a unity as will enable a Pope to change Scripture ... not to mention trying to sweep away (simply by a signature) ... entire ancient liturgical traditions ... I find it hard to believe that many Orthodox would be prepared to swallow such a toxic pill. Indeed, I pray that they would not. If, on the other hand, his hopes are that union would leave the Byzantine Churches free from hyperpapalist agressions, while the worst excesses of that disorder would continue to be visited upon Western Christians, one can only ask why unfortunate Westerners should continue to be the subjects and victims of this tyranny.

For me, matters are even closer to home.

When I was an Anglican, keen to do whatever I could to bring about the healing of the schism of 1559/1560, I kept a close eye on the proceedings of ARCIC and its successive reports. 

I cannot remember any point at which any ARCIC document ever claimed for the Roman Pontiff the right to change the texts of what Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel record, actually said, in order to make them prop up what an all-wise Pope now thinks He ought to have said.

Had ARCIC proposed any such ultrahyperpapalist notion .... or do I mean superueberpapalist ... I suspect that Partners In Dialogue, not least the Evangelical ones, would very quickly have made clear that this was not a sort of Papacy on board which they had any desire whatsoever to clamber. I suspect I might even have joined them.

Indeed, it's not the sort of papacy I have ever advocated. I have spent a lot energy over the decades of my life as an Anglican Papalist in explaining that this is very precisely not how the papacy was defined by Vatican I. It is not the Papacy which S John Henry was so relieved to recognise in the Vatican I definition.

I feel let down

I feel that we who entered into Full Communion under Benedict XVI have, under his self-aggrandising successor, been made fools of.

I wonder what S John Henry Newman would have made of this unscrupulous perversion of Catholic Doctrine; this gross over-magnification of the munus Petrinum.