Gibson wrote a letter addressed to Viganò on the blog of traditionalist publicist Aldo Maria Valli.

In his letter Gibson referred to Pope Francis by his birth name, Jorge Bergoglio, and commended Viganò as a "courageous hero".

"I'm sure you expected nothing else from Jorge Bergoglio.

"I know that you know he has no authority whatsoever - so I'm not sure how this will effect you going forward - I hope you will continue to say mass and receive the sacraments yourself - it really is a badge of honour to be shunned by the false, post-conciliar church" Gibson wrote.

"Of course being called a schismatic and being excommunicated by Jorge Bergoglio is like a badge of honour when you consider he is a total apostate and expels you from a false institution."

Gibson went on to say that the current pope is the schismatic.

"Remember that true schism requires innovation, something you have not done but something that Bergoglio does with every breath.

"He, therefore, is the schismatic!

"However he already ipso facto excommunicated himself by his many public heresies."

Gibson also mentioned that he had built a church where only traditional prayers are held and invited Viganò to celebrate mass there.

He dismissed Pope Francis's authority to excommunicate Viganò and expressed hope that he would also be excommunicated.

Support for Viganò

Since his excommunication, Viganò has garnered support from other prominent figures.

US Bishop Joseph Strickland criticised the Vatican's decision, pointing out the disparity between Viganò's quick excommunication and the lack of action against Theodore McCarrick despite his crimes.

Strickland, who was removed from the leadership of the Tyler diocese in November last year, called for a re-evaluation of the Vatican's actions, suggesting that Viganò's removal was intended to silence him.

Actor Jim Caviezel, known for his role as Jesus in Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," also supported Viganò. Caviezel urged people to pray for Viganò and described him as a fighter for the truth.

The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced Viganò's excommunication, citing his refusal to recognise and submit to both the Pope and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Viganò waived his right to defence, instead accusing Pope Francis of schism and heresy.

Sources

English Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

Perón died in 1974 and within two years the country descended into another military dictatorship and a cruel "dirty war". Guerrilla groups sprang up, specialising in bombings, kidnappings and assassinations; the military waged firefights with them and arrested thousands of innocent people suspected of fellow-travelling. The military death squads imprisoned, tortured and killed an estimated 30,000 people. Under the leadership of General Leopoldo Galtieri, the junta eventually fell apart only after the Falklands debacle, signalling Argentina's return to a uneasy form of populist, corporatist-style "democracy".

Meanwhile, Father Bergoglio climbed the Catholic hierarchy steadily. Known for his "option for the poor" (he ate in soup kitchens and took the bus), he nevertheless distanced himself from the liberation theology movements associated with left-wing Jesuits elsewhere in Latin America. Had he not done so, he would never have risen to the episcopate under John Paul II's papacy; and he might well have been found dead in a ditch - just one more clerical victim of the dirty war.

There are tales that as a senior Jesuit priest he failed to intercede with the junta to free two slum-worker priests from prison and torture. One family that lost a daughter and granddaughter accuses him of lying when he told a tribunal that he had no knowledge of the "stealing" of children from suspected dissidents. The allegations are unsafe, but no one can doubt that he came safely through those dark years by weighing every word and action with consummate care. Continue reading

Sources

• New Statesman
• Image: The Guardian

Specifically, both men have illuminated from different perspectives the relation between the primacy of God's offering of grace in the liturgy of the altar and subsequent encounters of man and neighbor in the liturgies of love in everyday life. While Pope Benedict most often stressed the encounter of God with man—which then calls for and makes possible authentic encounters with neighbor—Pope Francis has stressed man's interactions with each other, which allows us to bring Christ to a world despairing in atheistic politics and individual spiritualities.

These and other forms of despair are well known to both men. Joseph Ratzinger witnessed it in the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the brutality of Communist and other explicitly secular regimes. Jorge Bergoglio witnessed it in the poverty and politics of Argentina. He has also echoed Benedict XVI's concern over a "dictatorship of relativism."

Providentially, both men share particular theological remedies for all this. In his autobiography Milestones, Ratzinger calls attention to the writings of theologians like Henri de Lubac—the twentieth century Jesuit that is also appreciated by Pope Francis. Ratzinger recalls his delight in de Lubac's expression of Catholicism as a "social faith, conceived and lived as a we—a faith that, precisely as such and according to its nature, was also hope, affecting history as a whole, and not only the promise of a private blissfulness to individuals."

Today, Pope Francis is demonstrating the power of these words. He has offered stunning visuals that have captivated international audiences. And he exhorts the faithful to love likewise. In his March 27th General Audience, he said that "[f]ollowing and accompanying Christ, staying with him, demands ‘coming out of ourselves', requires us to be outgoing; to come out of ourselves, out of a dreary way of living faith that has become a habit, out of the temptation to withdraw into our own plans which end by shutting out God's creative action." Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: Catholic News Agency

He is on record as being open to consider ending the celibacy rule for Roman Catholic clerics, caring about the pastoral care of divorced and remarried Catholics and reflecting the approach of Vatican II in decentralizing Church governance to allow local bishops' conferences more initiative.

There seems little doubt that change is underway and the one thing we all know about change is that it has uncertain outcomes.

We are at a turning point in the Church and it will reward inspection of the key formative experiences in Pope Francis' life to see where and how things might go in coming years.

The man clearly brings a great deal of pastoral and administrative experience as a Church leader. But about him personally there is something else.

As Jorge Bergoglio, the current pope's first and then recurrent experience of ministry as a Jesuit was his making and directing the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Twice at least he has made the 30-day retreat, and he has also guided others over many years through that experience.

The Exercises are at once a school of prayer and an experience with one purpose - making decisions about directions in life. Over four "weeks" of varying lengths, the retreatant prays for the freedom to make good decisions.

They are prayerful days when a retreatant contemplates her or his human condition as a sinner in need of God's mercy, a companion with Jesus in his preaching and healing ministry, as one beholding the sorrowful and painful death of Jesus and then asking to share the new life of Jesus' resurrection.

What impact does making a 30-day retreat have in shaping a person? As one who's done two and has planned a third one for later this year, there is one uncompromising fact that has to be taken into account: God can only work with us as we are and sometimes God hasn't got much to work with!

There is no big tally card in the sky that measures and rewards achievement of standards expected of someone making the retreat. The believer comes as he or she is, that mixture of virtue and vice, insight and stubborn blindness, intelligence and stupidity, generosity and mean spiritedness.

So there is no "standard product" at the end of the Exercises. However there are at least three things that not even the most narrow, hard-hearted and obtuse person can miss as the process of the weeks unfold.

They are:

A relentless focus on God's love for us - from the first to last period of prayer over the 30 days - that has the corresponding effect of our appreciating how far we are from being loving creatures in response. We are sinners but loved sinners, which elicits greater self-knowledge, gratitude and humility.

A constant preoccupation with the person of Jesus - in his teaching and preaching in word and deed climaxing in prolonged meditation on his death and resurrection. The helpless surrender of Jesus to God's love on Calvary and the astonishing reversal that comes with the Resurrection are seen through not only Jesus' eyes but also in the Calvaries and resurrections of the retreatant's life.

The recurrent practice of what Ignatius called the "discernment of spirits" - those mood swings and feelings in an individual that lead towards or away from deepening inner peace, joy and confidence. Those that lead to the positive feelings are believed by the retreatant to be those leading him or her to choose God's will.

Self-knowledge, humility before the facts, decisiveness until another direction presents itself for consideration, looking for the traces of God's presence to be found when a decision is taken - these are at heart what will focus the energies and priorities that Pope Francis will choose.

But as a Jesuit and a leader of them, Pope Francis is a practiced exponent of what has developed as a pattern of leadership that received its fullest expression in the Constitutions of the Order, developed over a decade by St Ignatius. The book is both a guide to administration and a set of open-ended suggestions about approaches to effective leadership.

They have been the subject of study and writing by a former American Jesuit, celebrated author and business consultant, Chris Lowney. He summarizes the Ignatian heritage of leadership as being marked by four key features that will turn up in this pontificate:

Self-awareness: A good leader in this tradition will know his or her capabilities and, as a consequence, also areas of limitation. A leader with self-knowledge surrounds him or herself with people who complement his abilities and so makes up for gaps and short-comings.

Ingenuity: Good leaders are curious and Ignatian leaders are invited to look beyond the ordinary and the possible to the magis, the Latin word Ignatius used for the "greater" or "further" we are capable of, even what seems impossible. Ignatian leaders like and embrace challenges.

Love: Ignatian prayer leads to the specific and the actual because its purpose is to have the believer find God, the source and center of love, in everyone and everything, however unlovely they may appear at first sight. It is the engine room of service and, in Ignatian prayer, is met in the desire to do the best for others and oneself.

Courage: Ignatian prayer and governance is also about taking risks., thinking big, making things happen all in the service of God and human beings. For Ignatius, making things happen for God, oneself and others means not taking blocks and knockbacks in striving to make a positive difference.

This is where Jorge Bergoglio is coming from. Only time will tell where and to what extent Pope Francis will take this formative legacy.

Source

Fr Michael Kelly SJ, is the Bangkok based executive director of UCA News. Originally published in UCA News. Used with permission.