Censur: Rome Wants a New Index of the Internet
(Rome) In the name of the "open society", there are efforts to restrict open dialogue. What left-leaning groups and media demand, and what leftist governments and parliaments are trying to introduce, also applies to the current Church leadership. Riccardo Cascioli, the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Internet newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, sounds the alarm and warns against a new Index Liborum. The new index no longer applies to forbidden books, but to "forbidden" websites.
Dissenting Vote from the "Church of Tenderness" Undesirable
Riccardo Cascioli
The "Church of Tenderness" does not like dissenting voices, according to Cascioli. The "hearing" of a "listening Church" is emphasized, but only applies to certain dispositions. A personality cult has been created around the "humble" pope. Those who do not pay homage to him will not be tolerated.
Yesterday, the Italian daily Il Giornale published a commentary by Riccardo Cascioli, one of the leading international Catholic journalists. It's a wake up call:
"The Pope is putting 'uncomfortable' websites on the index". The reasoning? They would spread "too many fake news".
In response to the Viganò dossier, an office for the "Certification of Catholic Media" has emerged. One could also speak of a new censorship authority. In general, the call for censorship currently seems to move according to the fantasies of the powerful in the Church and world circles. It is no coincidence that an affinity can be seen between the two groups.
Censorship required
The demand for a censorship authority is contained in the final report of the Youth Synod, and it is well known that neither the synod attendees nor the adolescents wrote it. The text is from an editorial committee whose members were handpicked by Pope Francis. The demand comes directly from the papal court, to which it plays itself, in order to derive a staged call to action.
Index of Forbidden Books
A separate authority should "administer certification systems for Catholic websites". By that, they say, they want to fight "fake news" that affects the Church.
Cascioli sees things very differently and speaks of a "worrying demand":
"It seems to be the latest building block in a subliminal war against websites accused of criticizing Pope Francis and some of his collaborators who are particularly active in driving forward the change of religious instructors."
The idea is not even original, "since the tradition of the Index of Forbidden Books is used.” The famous Index Librorum Prohibitorum, still blamed on the Church today, was in use from the mid-16th century to the mid-20th century. However, there is a "fundamental difference," according to Cascioli:
"The Index justified itself by the need to protect the Catholic people from heresies, which were more easily spread by the invention of printing. Today, on the other hand, censorship wants to address those who call for orthodoxy and who do not want to conform to the 'new course of the Church, which is full of' surprises' that contradict what has been believed and lived for 2000 years.”
Amoris laetitia as the trigger of an "Internet war"
Cascioli speaks of this "Internet war", which he attributes to the publication of the controversial post-synodal Amoris laetitia in April 2016. Some Episcopates interpreted the letter as a green light for the approval of remarried divorced people (and not just them) to Communion - with papal approval.
Critics warned in advance that this would not only question the marriage sacrament, but the entirety of Catholic moral teaching. Four cardinals, Caffarra, Brandmüller, Burke and Meisner, addressed their doubts (Dubia) directly to Pope Francis. That was more than two years ago. When they received no answer, they handed over their Dubia to some Catholic Internet media in November 2016. These media, including Cascioli's Nuova Bussola Quotidiana and Vatican Sandro Magister's Settimo Cielo, had been selected because the official Catholic press was "on par and ready to support any doctrinal revolution."
Answer by Francis to Cardinal Sarah (2017)
Other Catholic websites, including Katholisches.info for the German-speaking area, published in late September 2016 the Correctio filialis against the spread of heresies, which was signed by theologians, philosophers and priests. They urged Pope Francis to oppose the spread of heresies. The Vatican responded initially with an angry reaction by blocking access to the websites.
A month later, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Roman Congregation for the Divine Worship and Sacraments, used independent Catholic media instead of the official Vatican media to publish a statement. With it he turned against daring interpretations for the translation of the liturgical texts into the vernaculars that had occurred after the publication of the Motu proprio Magnum Principium by Pope Francis. In November 2017, Francis took an unprecedented step. He demanded from Cardinal Sarah that the same media publish his opposition, with which he disagreed with Sarah's statements.
"This demand made it clear how much the work of certain media, which can not be controlled by the church leadership, disturbs the great mastermind," says Cascioli.
In March 2018, the Vatican even commissioned one of the world's most famous and expensive [aberrosexual] law firms to put an end to the Spanish, independent, Catholic website InfoVaticana.
Francis: "For reasons of mental hygiene, I do not read them"
In the Vatican, however, one does not want to see the confusion and discomfort that reigns among the Catholic people, both among the faithful and among the faithful, because of "the distorted interpretation of the doctrine that seeks to impose a certain progressiveness." Instead, the question is being drawn into the political, according to Cascioli, who speaks of "nests of conservative resistance” against an alleged "springtime of the Church" that this pontificate produces.
This is not only the narrative of his close circle, but also of Pope Francis himself. When he met with the Jesuits of these countries during his trip to Chile and Peru last January, he said:
"For reasons of mental hygiene, I do not read the website of this so-called 'resistance'. I know who that is. I know the groups, but I do not read them. If there is something very serious, please let me know so that I know. "
The suggestion was an invitation to priests and faithful to do the same, and not read critical voices. In fact, the Pope's statement made it clear how much the sting of these independent websites hurts in the flesh. It hurts so much that Francis "reserved" his own space in his recent Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exultate.
In it, Francis accuses some Christians of being "part of networks of verbal violence". "Even in Catholic media, borders can be crossed; Often, slander and libel persist, and any ethics and respect for others' reputation seem to be ignored.”
Topically in step with worldly forces
Punctually, last March Francis not only responded spontaneously but also with the same tones that have been heard from the ranks of the US establishment since the end of 2016. From the circles of the establishment that is opposed to Donald Trump in the US presidential campaign. These are the same notes that were struck a short time later in Western European state chancelleries, after the New York Times had given the go-ahead the day after the election. The Network Enforcement Act is a result of this.
In November 2008, Barack Obama's election victory was celebrated as the "first victory" of the Internet, "the most ingenious invention of progress and democratization" because a "new grassroots movement" had been mobilized through social media, but since Donald's election victory Trump in November 2016, the Internet has been presented by the same circles as a dangerous threat.
Also in this point Francis represents the position of the left establishment. The danger suddenly painted on the wall was an uncontrolled internet that could contribute to the actual or potential dissemination of fake news. The tagline "Fake News" was the deciding slogan issued by the New York Times the day after the US presidential election. Not a word is mentioned that classic media also spread fake news, but this entail far more serious consequences.
The motive of Trump’s opponents and of Pope Francis is the same. Only controlled media are good media.
The new language rule: "self-proclaimed Catholic" pages
The intra-Church conflict has now, through the McCarrick scandal, a whole new battlefield, which had already emerged earlier this year with the Barros case. The former nuncio to the US, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, accused Pope Francis in connection with the sexual abuse scandal of serious wrong decisions and calls for his resignation.
"The papal court - which, in addition to the official Church media, can count on the support of the leading secular media - which tries to reduce the whole issue to a problem of clericalism, while the objectionable websites give wide berth to the source of the problem of homosexuality which is tolerated, if not encouraged, by the Church leadership. "
And Cascioli continues:
"The fight is therefore getting harder. Therefore, the media supporting the doctrinal revolution seeks to deprive independent websites of legitimacy that has recently come to be disparaged as 'self-proclaimed Catholic' sites.”
Here, too, Pope Francis' co-workers, secondaries and helpers follow worldly customs, where for some time now left-wing circles have targeted "self-proclaimed Pro-Life movements" and "self-proclaimed life-defenders" or, in the political sphere, the standard slurs refer to "self-proclaimed patriots" and "self-proclaimed homeland protectors.” The much-vaunted "inclusion" disappears in an instant when it comes to dissenting opinions.
Cascioli concludes:
"This explains the urge for censorship, which certainly will not be without consequences."
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Il Giornale (screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
