Who Are The "Pelagians" For Pope Francis? -- A Question About the Korea Trip

Pope Francis and the "Pelagian"

(Seoul) Who are the Catholics,  whom Pope Francis has suspected of heresy, as he refers to them as "Pelagians"? Or has his opinion changed dramatically and transformed the charge of heresy  into  papal gratitude? Secretum meum mihi drew a comparison between the "contradictory" attitudes of the Pope to the same thing. "What is it? Has the Pope changed his mind within a year? He said then or now not what they say, that he said it? He was misunderstood? ", Therefore, asks Francisco de la Cigoña, one of the most famous Catholic blogger in Spain.

"The trip to Korea was a success and at the moment there seems to be nothing startling and the right see would be to deny and clarify." Says de la Cigoña. "Can it be that the Pope learns to be the Pope? God willing."  Certainly he saw in Korea a thriving, missionary church with a very traditional appearance. How had they just experienced why such growth? While the Church in Japan, which is so close and yet so different, does not pick up. "

The Pelagians accusation in June 2013

Pope Francis at his meeting with the Korean religious

On 6 June 2013 Pope Francis had received the progressive board members of the umbrella organization of religious Latin America and the Caribbean Confederación Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Religiosos y Religiosas  (CLAR) in private audience. The statements of the pope were fabricated from memory of the minutes from memory  of the one-hour meeting, was immediately leaked by  the progressive Chilean journal Reflection y Liberacion  and published by it.

The Vatican was as surprised and was silent.  Although Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, questioned by journalists on the authenticity of the protocol gave a statement, without saying anything to the content. He limited himself to the statement that there had been a "private meeting", "I have reason not to give an explanation of the content of the conversation." What the Vatican spokesman indirectly confirmed the authenticity of the protocol.

The CLAR-chairman, Sister Mercedes Leticia Casas Sánchez FSP and Secretary Father Gabriel Naranjo Salazar CM felt compelled to apologize for the publication on behalf of the Federation. The content of the statements referred to in the minutes of the pope was explicitly confirmed.

What the Pope said a Year Ago

According to the "exclusive" protocol publication of reflection y Liberacion  Pope Francis said this to the Latin American religious superiors:

I share with you two concerns. One is the Pelagian current that there is in the Church at this moment. There are some restorationist groups. I know some, it fell upon me to receive them in Buenos Aires. And one feels as if one goes back 60 years! Before the Council... One feels in 1940... An anecdote, just to illustrate this, it is not to laugh at it, I took it with respect, but it concerns me; when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: "Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries." Why don't they say, 'we pray for you, we ask...', but this thing of counting... And these groups return to practices and to disciplines that I lived through - not you, because you are not old - to disciplines, to things that in that moment took place, but not now, they do not exist today...[From Rorate]

It was the first statement which the new Catholic Church leader made to traditional Catholics which is why the statement caused a sensation. Some tried to mitigate what the Pope said with the unauthorized interpretation that he had meant only "certain", "extreme" groups of tradition.

 Non-Pelagians Accused in August 2014

In South Korea, in any event, you seem to have not quite understood what Pope Francis said with his "heresy" -accusation. During his Korea trip which took place on August 16, he also said the following at a meeting with the Korean Conference of Major Superiors.The meeting  was attended by several thousand religious to whom the Pope gave  a speech. What happened there as reported on August 17, inter alia Aciprensa, the most important Spanish-language Catholic News Agency:

"The chairman of the Conference of Major Superiors of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Fr Hwang Seok-mo, brought Pope Francis, the spiritual gift of 3.7 million rosaries and more than almost 100,000 fasting vows.

We present a gift that we have prepared for Pope Francis. The gift of religious men and women is a spiritual gift: the promise of 3,708,821 rosaries and 118,408 so far.' The meeting of the Holy Father with thousands of religious men and women found himself in the 'school of love' present in Traning Center of Kkottongnae.

The Holy Father was grateful for these sacrifices and encouraged them to be living examples of joy and mercy of God, and stressed the importance of the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience."

Heresy or Model "Sacrifices"?

"The Holy Father was grateful for these sacrifices?" asks blog Secretum meum mihi , "the Pope has so fundamentally changed his mind within one year, that for which he was "worried" about 14 months ago that he condemned it as a heresy, is now thanking?  Are these Korean religious unlike those at the time when the Pope was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who brought him as a gift a spiritual bouquet of rosaries?  Why do not they say, We're praying for you, we ask ... ', but 'this numbering ...', the Pope had said this against progressive Latin American religious representatives. Now, the same pope thanked in South Korea addressing the conservative Korean religious representatives,  for what a few months ago he was not only "concerned" about but criticized, had even called it a Pelagian heresy.

In Kkottongnae, Pope Francis visited the great center for the disabled of Father John Oh, who led the Catholic Church leader to the cemetery erected there for the aborted children.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Francisco de la Cigoña / Secretum meum mihi
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...

Please excuse any hobgoblins.

AMDG