Vortex: "New Tone"?

Michael Voris nails it again, concerning the alleged "obsession" of the Church with abortion, homosexual marriage, and contraception. The gist of the September 25 Vortex is this:

…[E]xactly when and where was this “obsession” on the part of Church leaders and her clergy on preaching about, for example, contraception, that so many church leaders are all rushing to the barricades now to foreswear, to pledge to TONE down their incessant preaching about because there is suddenly a new “TONE”.

What’s new about it? How is being silent for the past 40 years going to be different from being silent moving forward from here. Silence is pretty silent and sounds pretty much like any other silence.

 MV isn’t alone in this appraisal, either. LifeSiteNews quoted Bishop Robert F. Vasa ‘s reaction to the media reports that the Pope has said that the Church must not be “obsessed” by issues like abortion, homosexuality, and contraception.

 “I certainly do know that there are individuals, and I certainly would probably be among them, who firmly believe that these are core cultural issues about which we must be vocal,” the prelate told the Press Democrat on Friday. “But I'm not obsessed about them. A vast majority of the things that I write do not include abortion as a topic or contraception or divorce and remarriage.”

“Is there a need for teaching about those things? Absolutely. Are there some folks who overstep the boundary and say, 'OK we're preaching about this every single Sunday?' Well, there may be. But there's a vast majority of people who never talk about it,” he continued.

“[If] everyone talked about it a little, there would be fewer who feel the need to talk about it more,” he added. [go here for the rest of the story]

MV notes that “the application of ‘new tone’ hasn’t worked for 50 plus years” and adds:

The churches are emptying out and closing and yet Church leaders are positively giddy about now being able to stop talking about the sins that send souls to Hell and start speaking with a “new tone”.

And that “new tone” is being met with glee by the secular media and others:

When Jane Fonda and Chris Rock are cheering on you and your new tone, you better watch out. They aren’t cheering you on because they have suddenly had a Damascus moment and are agreeing with you. They are cheering you on because they hope or actually think that YOU now agree with THEM, or at the very least can now be persuaded to come over to their side.

 MV also mentions that notorious meme gleaned from the NARAL website that thanks Pope Francis on behalf of "pro-choice women". Says MV:

They aren’t saying thank you for showing us the light so that we can now convert to the truth.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing us to the realization of the paschal mystery and our path to salvation.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing to them the light of revelation and the glorious mysteries of the Catholic Church.

They are saying thank you for giving them the moral license to now fire back at pro-lifers and faithful Catholics who have spent decades in front of the abortion chambers praying for the killing to end.

Here's the Vortex:

The script:

Lots of cowardly clerics are most delighted at the Pope’s interview because they feel and are even saying, in so many words, that they are now off the hook. For years, they’ve kept their mouths shut about the hot button issues of sexual morality. Cardinal Dolan even admitted that – as if ANYONE needed his guilty admission to know the truth of the matter.

Unlike John Paul and Benedict, who many of them just ignored when it came to stressing the importance of defeating these evils, now they finally have a Pope who they can interpret to mean, “Phew, glad we don’t have to mention those things anymore” as if they had ever in reality lifted one blessed finger to preach against these evils in the first place.

And to the precise point, exactly when and where was this “obsession” on the part of Church leaders and her clergy on preaching about, for example, contraception, that so many church leaders are all rushing to the barricades now to foreswear, to pledge to TONE down their incessant preaching about because there is suddenly a new “TONE”.

What’s new about it? How is being silent for the past 40 years going to be different from being silent moving forward from here. Silence is pretty silent and sounds pretty much like any other silence.

Please. The mainstream MEDIA is the institution that informed the world of the Church’s teaching about sexual morality in an obsessed fashion – non-stop, 24hrs a day, every 24 hour news cycle you can imagine.

Most clergy, including bishops, were already ignoring the sins that send more souls to Hell than any other, so warns the Queen of Heaven at Fatima, or they were busy in confession outright denying that any of these acts are sinful.

You will have to hunt from here into eternity on the US Bishops website for statements condemning contraception for example, which threatens an everlasting damnation of the person, and you will have to hunt under mountains of press releases stressing immigration reform and welfare policy which have no intrinsic power to damn a soul.

John the Baptist had no such tone that some bishops and others are ascribing to Pope Francis.

Our Lord had no such tone. St. Peter had no such tone. It’s not clear that St. Paul even would have understood what the word “tone” even meant.

The application of “new tone” hasn’t worked for 50 plus years.

The churches are emptying out and closing and yet Church leaders are positively giddy about now being able to stop talking about the sins that send souls to Hell and start speaking with a “new tone”.

The churches are emptying out and closing and yet Church leaders are positively giddy about now being able to stop talking about the sins that send souls to Hell and start speaking with a “new tone”.

Again – how will the new tone, be anything different from the old current tone? When Jane Fonda and Chris Rock are cheering on you and your new tone, you better watch out. They aren’t cheering you on because they have suddenly had a Damascus moment and are agreeing with you. They are cheering you on because they hope or actually think that YOU now agree with THEM, or at the very least can now be persuaded to come over to their side.

Why else does anyone think they are all tripping over each other to issue press releases and statements praising the pope? Funny…didn’t see ONE statement or press release from them the next day when the pope roundly and solidly condemned abortion in the strongest tone AND words he has used since his election.

Same question - Why else would the pro-abortion group NARAL almost immediately create and post a meme on their Facebook page saying “Thank you, Pope Francis from pro-choice women everywhere.”

They aren’t saying thank you for showing us the light so that we can now convert to the truth.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing us to the realization of the paschal mystery and our path to salvation.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing to them the light of revelation and the glorious mysteries of the Catholic Church.

They are saying thank you for giving them the moral license to now fire back at pro-lifers and faithful Catholics who have spent decades in front of the abortion chambers praying for the killing to end.

The issue is about saving souls. Every action done, every word uttered must be measured against this standard.

Will this encourage Jane Fonda to REPENT and become an authentic Catholic? Will she hang up her weapons of mass contraception and renounce a lifetime strategy of global population reduction through abortion and contraception?

Just what part of the “good news” has she suddenly embraced, so much so that she is praising the Vicar of Christ on earth? Same types of questions for Chris Rock and all the other cultural elitists who have lived against and even actively fought against the truth with every fiber of their beings for most of the lives.

These statements about “loving the pope” and “the pope is great” aren’t born out of any conversion and desire to repent; they are born out the smell of blood in the water. They are moving in for the kill – they think.

But at the end of the day, the Church is Christ’s. Not the pope’s, not the bishops’ or any other cowardly clerics’.

She is His Bride, and He will not suffer forever Her mourning in the marketplace and desecration of Her altars and confessionals. He is allowing this scourge of contradiction and humiliation, of being mocked and laughed to scorn by Her enemies, to bring about salvation for some souls, somewhere at some time.

In the meantime, amidst all the verbal and emotional stoning going on, stand fast – while the faith is full of mystery, it is also quite simple.

Loving God means more than just feeling a certain way. He Himself has told us what it means – if you love me, you will keep my commandments.