Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock

Pope Francis is the legitimate pope, but, as alluded to in Phillip Lawler's excellent book, Lost Shepherd, How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock,there is little if any doubt that there were shenanigans played to get him elected. As the far left radical Cardinal Godfried Danneels even admits, there was long talk and even plotting among the St Gallen mafia to get Jorge Bergoglio elected pope. Campaigning for a certain pope is strictly prohibited and is punishable by excommunication. But those, including Danneels, German Cardinals Kasper and Marx and others of their leftist ilk who campaigned to get Bergoglio elected knew there wouldn't be any repercussions from the future Pope Francis. It's not surprising that such anti-Catholic Cardinals would try to move the Catholic Church in a "progressive " direction, but the Cardinals who are really to blame for the disastrous Francis papacy are those Cardinals who now say they have buyers remorse. What were they thinking or not thinking to be so out of touch? It is reported that Bergoglio came in second in the 2005 conclave that elected the GREAT Pope Benedict XVI. I have little doubt that had not 5 million plus mostly young people shown up in Rome to honor and pay respects to and attend the funeral of St. John Paul II, Bergoglio likely would have been elected then instead of Joseph Ratzinger. Many Cardinals admitted being stunned by the overwhelming outpouring for St John Paul II and saw it as a sign to continue the ways of JP II. Thank God they showed up, the huge outpouring at least delayed Francis' destruction of the Catholic Church. And the story from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick about receiving a visit one evening from a "very interesting and influential Italian gentleman" who suggested that he talk up Bergoglio for pope. That is a strange story, and even hard to believe and doesn't even make sense. If true though, the first thing that came to mind was that George Soros was involved. McCarrick is a big leftist though and could have been making the whole thing up for some reason.It's obvious that Phillip Lawler was pained that he had to write such a book about the Vicar of Christ of his beloved Catholic Church. I heard him say as much on The World Over on EWTN. In fact he was originally thrilled with th election of Pope Francis, but came to regret his election as time went by and who Francis is and what he is about has become much more apparent. Mr. Lawler is a very professional writer and researcher and is greatly able to surmise what is really going on by bringing facts together from various sources.There is so much to comment on in the book. Touching on a few, Pope Francis' treatment of the four dubia Cardinals for requesting clarification of Amoris Latetia has been pathetic and disrespectful. Francis not responding to the Cardinal's request for clarification related to the Holy Eucharist for divorced and then remarried outside the Catholic Church Catholics actually is a response. It's obvious that Pope Francis and his ilk tried to pull a fast one and sneak in a provision in a very long exhortation that would permit Catholics living in adulterous situations to receive the Holy Eucharist.Yes, Mr Lawler has now sadly realized that Pope Franics is largely a radical "progressive" who wants and is making major changes in the Catholic Church. Sadly and horrifically, it may even be worse than Lawler thinks. He mentions Pope Francis trying to bring the Pope Pius X group into full communion with Catholic Church. Lawler alludes to the fact that the group is very traditional and goes against the leanings of Pope Francis, so he might just be trying to get more control of them. I have no doubt that is the case. I think he wants to bring them into the Catholic Church to largely shut them down. He despises the Latin Mass and has ridiculed young people who are attached to it as being "rigid." A bit of a disagreement with Lawler, I don't think the Latin Mass being successful in many areas, including even in parts of France, affects Francis at all. I believe he wants to shut it down regardless. The story in the book about Pope Francis reprimanding a young boy server for holding his hands in a reverent prayerful way made me angry. What is his problem? Of all the problems in the world, young people attached to the Latin Mass or holding their hands in a prayerful way are NOT two of them.Pope Francis is canonizing Pope Paul VI very soon. I have little doubt that this is just a misdirection play for his likely upcoming effort to diminish or even abolish Pope Paul VI's historic encyclical, Humanae Vitae,forbidding artificial contraception. Every horror predicted by Paul VI in Humanae Vitae has come true. Getting rid of it or watering it down would be another devastating blow to the Catholic Church brought about by Francis.And I have heard that Francis wants to move in the direction of getting rid of mandatory celibacy for the Catholic priesthood. Would be another catastrophe. He was a disaster in getting new seminarians when archbishop in Buenos Aires. It is the orthodox bishops who get many seminarians, the type of bishop that Francis despises. As mentioned in the book, Pope Francis pushed out some orthodox bishops for perceived infractions, including my former bishop, Bishop Robert Finn here in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo. He supposedly got rid of Finn for supposedly mishandling a case where a priest was found to have child pornography on his computer. Many of us think he handled it properly and he was a GREAT bishop for our diocese getting many seminarians. There was even an archbishop from Canada who came down and did an audit of the diocese under Finn for Pope Francis. He gave Bishops Finn high marks from what I understand, but that didn't matter to Pope Francis, it was all for show. Pope Francis used the episode as an excuse to push Finn out and thus get rid of another orthodox bishop. Yes, the same Pope Francis who recently recommended that the disgraced Cardinal Mahoney(Who transferred myriad abusive priests from parish to parish in the LA Diocese.) to be his representative at a diocesan event in PA. There was much uproar about it and Mahoney is now not attending. But it does give insight into Pope Francis' strange upside down world mindset.At one point in the book Lawler talks about some far let radical Jesuits who despised Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI largely because they weren't making radical changes in the Catholic Church, especially in he area of sexuality. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope. He may not be as radical as the Jesuits mentioned, but he NO doubt leans in their direction. He no doubt wants to radically transform the Catholic Church, and he may just be beginning his efforts. As Lawler says, we have to pray, but also act. Very few prelates are speaking out against Pope Francis, obviously fearing retribution from the dictatorial pope. It's the lay Catholics who have to step up and save the Catholic Church from Francis' destruction. They have to speak out in a relentless way and let the bishops know that they will not stand for it. Right now, Pope Francis though still seemingly has strong support and popularity. So the effort has to start with educating Catholics about his destructive ways. No, it won't be easy, but nothing short of saving the Catholic Church is at stake. One of the best places to start learning about the damage Pope Francis is doing to the Catholic Church is the great book, Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock, by Phillip Lawler. Highly recommended. I plan to read Lawler's book on the fall of the Catholic Church in Boston as well.

It has been just a few months since my review of "The Dictator Pope" went "viral", at least by my standards. In some ways it'sunfortunate that "Lost Shepherd" took a few additional months to come out, but it's good that it's right at the fifth anniversaryof Benedict's abdication. I had mentioned the work of CWR's Carl Olson and Fr. James Schall (who also writes for theCatholic Thing), and one commenter linked me to Phil Lawler's review of Dictator Pope. Anyway, that book had read likea lot of the reporting of the rad trad blogs for the past five years, like Tancred from the Eponymous Flower, or Louie Verrechio,or Hilary White. Or if you go back a few decades to the pre-blogging era, journals like the Wanderer or Christian Order orLatin Mass. I'm not saying those are Marcantonio Colonna's personal views, I'm just saying the book read that way.Phil Lawler is a different story, and his timeline of 2013-14-15-16 is similar to mine in becoming discouraged about thecurrent pontificate. People like Marcelo Gonzalez as printed in Rorate Caeli on 3-13-13, or Ann Barnhardt the following day,had already made up their minds, but for many it was a more gradual process of disillusionment and alienation. So in thatsense Lawler represents Catholic "mainstream media" like Rusty Reno of First Things, Edward Pentin of the Register,and his own (former) CWR. Or in terms of individual bloggers, Amy Welborn, whom Lawler cites to the effect that theGerman bishops have the most rapidly dying church but are given the most prominent priorities at the synod on the family.In the early to mid 2000s she had her personal opinions but she was basically just the epitome of where things seemedto be going, a reliable popular interpreter of the papacy. Now she's writing "Against Popesplaining". The point, for theAmerica and Commonweal types out there, is that we're not happy, we're not gleeful about all this, it's just a matter ofconscience and the sensus fidei just as you claimed it was under previous popes. So all of a sudden to pretend to bescandalized by "anti-papal" resistance is ridiculous when that's EXACTLY what many have done for my entire life.As for the content of the book, a lot of it is similar to the Dictator Pope but better drawn out. For instance, the chapteron financial and other reforms, while still boring to me, is explained out a little bit in a way that shows how some ofthese intricacies matter. The opening chapters cover well the abdication, conclave and early days of March 2013 andfollowing. Again, for people like Lawler and myself, the basic framework was "there will be different style and emphasisbut that's basically good for the Church and will bring new perspective without what Benedict calls rupture". The restof the book shows how things have turned out differently. There's a lot on the synod of course, but before that theearly documents of Lumen Fidei (written by both Benedict and Francis), Evangelii Gaudium, then Laudato Siand finally Amoris Laetitia, which has provoked such a debate for going on two years. I need not rehash all thepersonalities involved. Again, if you regularly read the blogs you know this stuff, but it's good to have it compiledin a book. And once again, the title of the book is probably more polemical than most of its content. It's certainly notpro-Francis, but it's with a hesitant melancholy. It's too bad that Lawler will probably be overshadowed by theinflammatory Colonna and To Change the Church by Ross Douthat, who is both a very clever analyst and a memberof the "New York cocktail" circuit (though I'm sure he'll have a humorous disclaimer about that!)

Faithful Catholics will find this carefully researched book to be extremely helpful in this seriously critical period in our Church.

Lawler makes this book intriguing and the title gets the reader's attention but all it is saying is that Pope Francis is trying to bring the church into modernity and the old entrenched Curia is not allowing it. In essence what the book is saying that in Amoris Laetitia, the Pope is trying to get the faithful back into the sacraments after a divorce and re-marriage but we Catholics know very well that this cannot be done unless there is an annulment of the previous marriage which is only a sacramental annulment because Catholics need to be divorced before they can apply for an annulment. This is where the church is hypocritical where on the one hand they do not sanction divorce and remarriage unless the divorced person nullifies the original marriage. How does this sit with what Jesus said, according to St Matthew: "What God has joined together let no man put asunder". It is a complex issue because a Church annulment is putting the first marriage asunder by declaring it "sacramentally" as never having occurred. It would be much easier for the Church to accept divorce and then allow people to re-marry in the church. Try and get this past the Curia. Good luck Pope Francis. Lawler has written this book from a fundamentalist point of view insofar as the Church should never stray away from the teachings of Jesus Christ. However, the world has moved on. Is it time for the Church to do likewise?

Providing informations which are actaully searchable (in book of course with more details) in some media but not really something one will find in "mainstream-modern liberal media".

One of three recently published studies on how the current Pope is subverting two thousand years of Church teaching. and sowing alarm and dismay among the faithful. A depressing read, but so important in helping to understand the current crisis in the Church, unbelievably fuelled by the man whose job is to defend orthodoxy, not destroy it.

A decent summary of what we suspected was happening.