The Reconciliation of Ernesto Cardenal

Ernesto Cardenal, with stole, during the first Mass after lifting his suspension a divinis.

The Catholic journalist Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña, one of the most well-known Spanish columnists and bloggers on Church issues, has never made a secret of his rejection of Marxist liberation theology and his criticism of their representatives such as Ernesto Cardenal. His grandfather had been murdered by the Marxists in the Spanish Civil War because, as a Catholic and an industrialist, he belonged to the "wrong" credo and the "wrong" class. He knows about what is supposedly meant well but can lead to wrong ideas.

Progressive Church circles celebrate the pardon of Cardenal by Pope Francis and take the opportunity once again to repeat their dislike of Pope John Paul II, who suspended Cardenal a divinis in 1984. This reaction was predictable and contains nothing new. How much more remarkable, however, is the conciliatory tone found by a hard critic of Cardenal like Fernandez de la Cigoña. The Spanish journalist sheds light on the extent to which the devout Catholic rejoices over anyone who returns to the full unity of the Church, and over any suspended or apostate priest who rightfully practices his sacrament of Holy Orders, even if he was once a harshly criticized opponent.

The video at the end of the article shows from minute 1:08 also Pope John Paul II’s meeting with Ernesto Cardenal, then Sandinista minister in Nicaragua. The gesture of the head of the Church clarifies the drama of the moment. He demanded Cardenal's immediate resignation as Minister of Culture, which he refused.

Here is the comment by Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña on the pardon of Ernesto Cardenal by Pope Francis in full:

Penalties waived against Ernesto Cardenal

by Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña

The penalties against Ernesto Cardenal have been lifted. That seems to me very good. He is 94 years old. He is in a hospital and looks very bad. It goes so far that it is not clear in the photos whether he is still fully conscious. Did he celebrate the Mass? Did he concelebrate? Whatever it is, it makes me very happy.

A priest of Jesus Christ who has been suspended for his political activities, minister of a Marxist government, communist, or whatever you wish to qualify it as, who has violated all the rules of the Church, is called by Pope Francis in articulo mortis [in the face of death] or almost pardoned. 

Blessed Mercy of the Church.

Like the Claretian priest and liberation theologian Pedro Casaldáliga, Cardenal was considered a poet. For me he was never a writer, this attribution was misleading. There is no merit in his literary work; on the contrary, it seemed to me right rubbish, which was crammed with the prevailing leftist thinking. He always seemed to me to be an eccentric who was especially concerned about his fame. But perhaps he was misunderstood, even though his life conveyed exactly that impression. All his Sandinista passion ended in a radical opposition to the system he advocated and which had cost him the suspension a divinis. He was really mobile like a donna. (1)

I read that a few years ago he rejected the pardon of the Church. In old age you may know it better, as in his now. So we want to believe that he has now reconciled himself with the Church before his conscience - and above all in the infinite grace of God, which overcomes all our weaknesses.

John Paul II raised his accusing finger against him as he had to. The criticism of the Jesuit Pedro Miguel Lamet, even now, is even more regrettable. Now if Francis generously offered his hand, then that is as it should be. He has not acquitted a Sandinista, but a priest from his past mistakes. Now he can look forward to the mercy of the Church. And we too. Today, Cardenal is against Daniel Ortega, though that does not matter anymore in his state of doubtful consciousness. When he expressed his opposition to the Ortega system, he was still conscious.

Because of his age and my age, I'm sure I'll never meet Ernesto Cardenal. If anything happened tomorrow, I would also devoutly ask him, "Bless me, Father." And I would be able to receive his blessings from him with the permission of the Church. That pleases me a lot.

The pictures say a lot about the Pope's mercy. At least this time.

There are a few more, but I hold back.

If someone thinks that you should not publish such photos, then please do not complain to me, but on the progressive websites Lamet and Religion Digital.

Text: Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña
Übersetzung: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Religion Digital (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

_________________________________________

(1) A play Canzone „La donna è mobile“ (The Lady is temperamental, fickle) in the Opera  Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.

AMDG

New Jesuit Provincial is “Worst of the Worst”

Rafael Velasco, the new Jesuit Provincial of Argentina and Uruguay

(Buenos Aires) The Jesuit General Arturo Sosa Abascal has appointed Father Rafael Velasco as the new Provincial of the Province of Argentina and Uruguay. The appointment was "the worst of the worst," says Spanish columnist Francisco Fernandez de La Cigoña. From 1973 to 1979 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, today's Pope Francis, was Provincial of this province.

The new provincial was Rector of the Catholic University of Cordoba (UCC) until 2014. He advocates the recognition of homosexuality and the introduction of women's priesthood and assures that he will continue to adhere to Marxist liberation theology.

He expressed his views on this in an interview with the Argentine journalist Mariano Saravia in 2013. Velasco then called for "reforms" in the Church that, in addition to recognizing homosexuality and the admission of the women's priesthood, also meant the elimination of the Roman Curia, the last medieval court in the middle in the 21st century.”  "The community should have more say" in episcopal appointments. 

On the objection that Pope John Paul II had definitely excluded the women's priesthood, Velasco replied that Pope Francis could simply "reopen" the question. There is "nothing the Pope can not open. The pope or a council.” [What happened to not turning back the clock?]

There are "logical" consequences to be drawn, "if a homosexual lives the same norms of love and loyalty that we demand from heterosexuals, then we must totally rehabilitate them for the sacraments, beginning with communion."

The former rector of the Catholic University denied the infallibility of the pope in the interview, when he speaks ex cathedra to questions of theology and morality. According to Velasco, the infallibility in matters of faith is "democratizing.”

According to the Jesuit, Marxist liberation theology is "the reality of reading the word of God from the poor.” The Church has "always" made policy, "but the only ones who have been punished are Ernesto Cardenal and Fernando Lugo."

Cardenal, one of the priests who became armed revolutionaries in the wake of Marxism, was from 1979, Minister of the Sandinista Revolutionary Government in Nicaragua, and Lugo was elected as a candidate for a left-wing alliance to the Presidency of Paraguay. Cardenal, lost office in 1987 due to cutbacks. In 1990, the Sandinists were voted out by the people in the first free and democratic elections. Cardenal nevertheless continues to profess himself to be "Sandinista, Marxist and Christian.”

Lugo won the 2008 elections, was relieved of office in 2012. He had just had to acknowledge the paternity of a second child whom he had conceived during his time as bishop of San Pedro with various women. He had already recognized the first child in 2009. Lugo's personal way of life was criticized as a "slap in the face of the Church.”

Due to the heterodox and heretical positions of Father Rafael Velasco, Francisco Fernandez de La Cigoña today greeted his appointment as the new Jesuit Provincial of Argentina and Uruguay as “a scandal.”

"The only positive thing about the news is that the Argentine and Uruguayan Jesuits are only fewer than 200, of whom one hundred must be eighty or almost eighty. Only 50 Jesuits will be younger than 60, of whom he is one of the youngest in the province at the age of 52.”

The cases of Velasco in Argentina and Wucherpfennig in Germany, to mention only the two most recent, as well as the scandalous statements by the Father General Arturo Sosa last year, means that it can be not only marginal cases, but the Jesuit Order seems to have a fundamental problem 

.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: InfoVaticana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Fernando Cardenal Dies -- Jesuit Liberation Theologian and Sandanista

Fernando Cardenal SJ (in civilian clothes first from the left) with FSLN
Commander Daniel Ortega

(Managua) He was a Minister Sandinista government. Under Pope John Paul II. he was suspended a divinis and expelled from the Jesuits. He was later reinstated into the order. He was not only a theoretical, but also a practical representative of Marxist liberation theology.

Now he has died at the age of 82 years and stands before the judgment seat of God. There is talk of Fernando Cardenal, the younger brother of Ernesto Cardenal. Both entered the Society of Jesus, were both politically active before their entry into the order, both were Catholic priests, they were both militant representatives of Marxist liberation theology and both were Ministers of the revolutionary Sandinista government that ruled Nicaragua from 1979-1990. With the collapse of the communist bloc, the Sandinista regime collapsed. Concealed, like some communist parties of Europe, the Sandinista Liberation Front FSLN today belongs to the Socialist International and is a sister party of the SPD, Social Democratic Party and SPS.

Revolutionary from a wealthy family

Fernando Cardenal was born in 1934 in Granada, Nicaragua, the son of a wealthy Spanish-born family. Together with his brother, Ernesto, he joined himself early to the Nicaraguan opposition and Marxist liberation theology. The brothers Cardenal became its most important practical representatives and participated in the armed struggle of the Sandinista underground FSLN (Sandinista Front of National Liberation) that fought against the Somoza government.

After the Sandinistas had violently overthrown the government in 1979, the brothers Cardenal took over leading tasks in the revolutionary government, which enjoyed great sympathy and support from the orthodox and unorthodox Left of Europe. Fernando was deputy chairman of the Sandinista Youth League.

The Brothers Cardenal as Ministers: suspension a divinis

The better known, older brother, Ernesto, became Minister of Culture of Nicaragua in 1979. His younger brother became Minister of Education in 1984 under Sandinista Daniel Ortega. The Vatican called for, as previously acknowledged by his brother, their immediate resignation. Fernando refused as previously his brother refused. A withdrawal would have been a "grave sin" explained Fernando Cardenal later to the BBC. "I can not think of a God, who would have required of me to let the people down."

Because of his disobedience, and because he had joined the armed struggle, he was suspended a divinis in Rome. Thus, he could no longer present himself as belonging to the Jesuit Order. The Order excludes a direct exercise of public office. So it had to meet the Roman demands and exclude Cardenal. However, the relationship between the brothers Cardenal and the Order remained benevolent.

The return to the Jesuit Order

In 1990 Sandinistas were voted out. After another six years, Fernando Cardenal was re-adopted by the Jesuit Order. After that, he had to repeat the novitiate for a year that he, so the biography went, spent his time "among the poorest of El Salvador", when he was admitted in 1997 back in full into the Order.

Since 2011, he headed has directed one of the order's own initiatives in Nicaragua. It was founded in 1955 by the Chilean Jesuit José Maria Velaz (1910 to 1985) in Venezuela. The movement is called Alegria y Fe. "Faith and Joy" is engaged, at least according to it's own report in "literacy" and "social and political awareness".

In the 1970s, Alegria y Fe became ideological and made ​​liberation theology its own. The 1974 movement was also active in Nicaragua. It maintains more than 1,000 schools and 53 radio stations in Latin America today.

On February 20, Fernando Cardenal died. Yesterday, in the ballroom of the Jesuit- led Central American University in Managua (Universidad Centroamericana, UCA), the Requiem took place . This was followed by burial.

Unlike his brother Ernesto, who opposed the social democratization of the FSLN resisted and the more radical, co-founded Movimento de Ronovacion Sandanista, the Movement of Sandinista Renovation (MRS), Fernando has not been politically active recently.

"May the Lord greet him with infinite mercy," said the Spanish columnist and opponent of liberation theology, Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: La Republica (Ecuador) (screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

Soviet-style Jesuit Reads Bad Poetry at "Catholic" School

Editor: Here's a puff piece in the Washington Post that not only fawns over Jesuit Ernesto Cardenal, it describes his Marxist struggle as one "struggling against injustice". The poor do not need such spokesmen. Calling the murderous Marxist uprising "a beautiful Revolution", the decayed Jesuit spoke to what looks like a crowd of tens at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Even if the administration of this Jesuit school lacks the Faith, there are a few remaining who have it:

Cardenal’s appearances in the United States to promote his latest work were greeted with hostility among some conservative Catholics. Thousands of protest letters spurred by the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, known by the acronym TFP, were sent to officials at Xavier University in Ohio and Loyola.

“Inviting Fr. Cardenal to speak at a Catholic university is like welcoming a wolf into a hen house,” John Ritchie, TFP’s student action director, wrote in an e-mail. “It’s a scandal that Xavier University and Loyola University (Maryland) hosted this man. His radical Marxist views are not only flawed, but also detrimental to the faith and incompatible with the teaching of the Church.”

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