Dutch right-wing cardinal attacks Pope Francis

This 2009 video about the extreme right within Swedish Roman Catholicism says about itself:

SSPX – The Swedish Crusade and [Holocaust denying] Bishop Richard Williamson (Pt 3)

Sten Sandmark left the Church of Sweden to avoid to have to bless homosexuals. Now, he instead joined with right-wing extremists and Holocaust deniers of the ultra-conservative clerical Brotherhood SSPX. The goal – to make Sweden Catholic again.

As vicar in Oskarshamn Sten Sandmark did for 30 years service in the Swedish Church. But when the church’s synod decided that gay couples would have the blessing of the Church, it was enough for him.

“I do not know if I can be in solidarity with the Swedish Church on the grounds of this decision”, he said in an SVT interview after the opt-out. The move by Sten Sandmark was bigger than many people imagined. That he chose to convert to Catholicism is no secret. Few know, however, the people he is with now.

The former vicar chose to turn to the most controversial society within the Catholic world – the ultra-conservative clerical Brotherhood SSPX, or the Society of St. Pius X as it is called in English. SSPX is [was; until 2009] since 20 years back banned by the Pope and the Vatican because of its extremely conservative stance. The founder of the SSPX, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, has several times been controversial for his intransigent attitude towards other religions and against immigrants.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Cardinal Eijk: Pope is not clear and endangers the unity of the church

Something strange is happening here. Under conservative predecessors of the present Pope Francis I, right-wingers like Eijk used to say again and again: the Roman Catholic Church is not a democracy, but a hierarchy. The pope represents God on earth and has absolute power. Roma locuta, causa finita: once the great pontiff in Rome has spoken about some issue, then Roman Catholics lower in the pecking order should not dare to have views different from the pope’s. If there is any danger to the unity of the church, then it is 100% the fault of rank and file left-wingers; never ever of the right-wing pope.

However, now Cardinal Eijk, presto! suddenly blames Pope Francis for endangering unity in the church.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands, Cardinal Eijk, strongly criticizes Pope Francis on an American Catholic website …

The reason for his article is a conflict in the German Catholic Church. An overwhelming majority of German bishops want to allow under conditions the Protestant marriage partners of Catholics to receive the Eucharist: bread and wine that is said to have been changed in the body and blood of Christ by the words of a priest.

Seven German bishops are opposed to the participation of Protestants, because it would go against the ecclesiastical doctrine. They presented the matter to the Vatican. It ruled that the German bishops must talk about it again and come to a unanimous verdict.

Completely incomprehensible

Eijk calls this answer “completely incomprehensible”. According to him, the ecclesiastical doctrine is very clear; the Eucharist may hardly ever be handed out to non-Catholics, and then only if it concerns members of an Orthodox Christian church. Protestants are not included in that. Eijk thinks that Pope Francis should leave no doubt about that.

For the same reason, the Pope, according to Eijk, must discipline some cardinals who speak out openly for the religious blessing of homosexual relationships, “something diametrically opposed to the doctrine of Christ, that marriage is only possible between a man and a woman”.

At the end of his letter, Eijk almost accuses the pope of deceiving. He notes that bishops and the pope do not know how to preserve and pass on the Catholic faith in the right way. That reminds him of an article from the catechism, the book in which the doctrine of the church is set forth. It says that the church before the return of Christ on earth will go through a final trial. In that, the faithful are exposed to “religious deception that seems to offer mankind a solution to their problems, in exchange for apostasy from faith”.

In dog-whistle theological language, Eijk here basically suggests that Pope Francis I is supposedly a tool of Satan.

75 [right-wing] Catholic priests and scholars ask Francis to backtrack on death penalty. The pope’s revision to the Catechism calls capital punishment “inadmissible”: here.