Re-read Lita Cosner's comment on Bergoglio's errors

First, in my comment on the reread, there is a very good part:

We would direct Francis to the example of Peter, and past leaders of the Church who strongly affirmed creation, even against competing origin theories. In fact, this includes people that the Catholic Church regards as ‘saints’ and even ‘doctors of the church’, a small prestigious subset of ‘saints’. If we trust Scripture’s accuracy and sufficiency, we will not be blown off course by every cultural and scientific fad. But most of all, we would point the Pope to Christ, the true vicar, and the true Head of the Church, who clearly believed in a literal Adam and Eve, and a recent creation.

Or, the last part of this part includes a misunderstanding of what Papacy is. A Pope is not claiming to be true ultimate head of the Church and so cannot be a false ultimate head of the Church and cannot be contrasted with Christ as true and ultimate Head of the Church, who has left us a visible presence, but also a visible vicar.

On the other hand, Bergoglio might be very confused about what belongs to Christ and is not up for His vicar's fidgeting and what is left to the vicar's discretion ... as is indeed very clear from the speech.

Now, there is a bad part also, given in comments section, in reply to a Catholic commenter:

Jack, Catholics and Protestants have been divided over the issue of the authority of the Pope for as long as Protestants have existed. You should not be surprised that CMI as a Protestant ministry rejects this. As we also believe that God has revealed in Scripture everything we need for Christian life and belief, we also reject any claimed extrabiblical revelations, at Fatima or anywhere else.

I will sort this up in three:

• I Jack, Catholics and Protestants have been divided over the issue of the authority of the Pope for as long as Protestants have existed.
  
  Indeed, for as long as Protestants existed. Which is quite a shorter time than Catholics have done so. We have been around since Jesus founded the Church.
  
  Bogumils and Cathars were also divided from Catholics, over this, but also over issues where they were closer to Bergoglio than to Lita Cosner.
  
  A sect in Orléans (more Averroist intellectual than Bogumil fanatic) also denied the Real Presence (which is a Biblical doctrine, revealed inter alia in John Chapter 6) and thirteen persons were burnt on a stake. But as they denied Christ's real incarnation and were Docetists, as they especially denied the Virgin Birth due to its being miraculous, and concluded by Docetism, Lita would perhaps have pitied them for burning on the stake, but she could hardly ahve said they stood for true Christianity. Or that those burning them stood for false theology in every detail where they differred from those getting burned.
  
  
• II You should not be surprised that CMI as a Protestant ministry rejects this.
  
  I recall debating in mails with Lita Cosner over a normally non-confessional issue - Geocentrism. Calvin was as Geocentric as St Robert Bellarmine, and a good Geocentric philosopher proving existence of God exactly same way as St Thomas Aquinas did. Excepting for very minor details of wording and terminology.
  
  Her answer included "we don't do Catholic bashing", which was one thing I appreciated CMI for.
  
  I had complained that they had made an exception on Galileo affair. And a dishonest one. Still, she claimed "we don't do Catholic bashing".
  
  Since then CMI has more than once gotten off the Creationist Ministry role and taken on a Protestant Ministry role - Protestant as in "Catholic bashing".
  
  A few points here.
  
  
  • i They are not just together a "ministry" (and as far as I know Pope Michael has never given them the status of a ministry, nor has any other legitimate or possibly legitimate authority in the Church done so), but also writers, on topic of Creationism.
    
    I am also a writer on topic of Creationism.
    
    They are having more publicity than I and earning more money than I, to be specific, I am homeless, they are or some of them are earning what they need for family possibly and renting a flat or a quad room certainly, by their writing.
    
    As I am not a Protestant, I cannot be an ecclesiastic part of their ministry, I have no problem with that. But publishing an essay on their site is not limited to parts of their minsitry, since Benno Zuiddam was published there, cited on St Augustine and the Church Fathers. Nor have they refrained from citing Catholics like Chesterton and Steno.
    
    So, yes, I know to my expense that they are a Protestant Ministry.
    
    
  • ij But, a Ministry (so called) done by Protestants may adress a mixed and therefore partly Catholic audience in other ways than Catholic bashing. Creationism as such, Creation Science as such, neither is Catholic bashing.
    
    Salvation Army is also a Ministry run by Protestants, shall we fear next time a Catholic homeless is sent to them, they are partial against his Catholicism and thus against him because he is a Catholic?
    
    
  • iij This particular insistance on being a Protestant Ministry is actually hurting them in part when it comes to being a Creationist Ministry.
    
    Each time they do Catholic bashing at all, Catholics like Mark Shea and Karl Keating feel they are right to portray a Catholic Creationist as "Protestant in Sheeps Clothing".
    
    Each time they attack the Church on Galilleo case, the men like Karl Keating and Mark Shea feel free to point out to Catholic Creationist Geocentrics that not even their allies among the Fundies - i e CMI or Danny Faulkner - are Geocentrics.
    
    But worse, they are being unusually sloppy as to their intellectual effort.
    
    Not as bad as other Protestants, but still worse than their best level. On par with some Old Earth compromisers.
  
  
  
• III As we also believe that God has revealed in Scripture everything we need for Christian life and belief, we also reject any claimed extrabiblical revelations, at Fatima or anywhere else.

This last item is purely a Red Herring. Any post-Biblical revelation is termed "private revelation" to distinguish it from the "public revelation" which is closed off when the last Apostle left the earthly life. I e when St John laid himself down in the grave he had dug himself, when he made a sign of the Cross, when their was a light and then his body was not visible, but mannah was in the grave. From then on, not on Yod is added to the "deposit of faith" or "public revelation". And "private revelations" are not telling us other ways to be Christian than the ones revealed, only pointing to the occasions of being such that occur in the times concerned.

Positively denying that such occur would be tantamount to denying Biblical promises by God.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Josaphat Kuncziewyc
Bishop of Polotsk, Martyred by Schismatics
14-XI-2014