One might wonder what are the reasons for the criticism and sadness expressed at the speech and attitude of Pope Francis during the funeral ceremony of the mass dedicated to the recently deceased Benedict XVI. Especially when these comments and reproaches do not come from inveterate anticlericals, Islamic fundamentalists, militants from adverse religions or supporters of atheism. The question is legitimate when the murmurs and the reprobations manifest themselves, curiously, in the midst of fervent Catholic faithful in France.
The reproaches are varied, more or less expressive, somewhat ambiguous: the brevity of the ceremony, a homily in which His Holiness Francis made a single and minimal allusion to the thought, work and person of the late Pope, a certain distance, if not dryness, in Francis’s conduct towards his predecessor when it is thought that Benedict XVI made expressive and convincing praise of the man who inherited the pontificate. New lamentations of the faithful that are added to the murmur of complaints that were raised before some provisions of Francis that contradict religious principles dictated by Benedict XVI during his tenure as pontiff.
Reproaches that, without a doubt, originate in deeper layers, previous, of the current evolution of Christianity in Europe and, particularly, in France. For quite some time now, the French Catholic hierarchy has done little, if not nothing, to stop the progression of a process of de-Christianization in this country. Attacks on Catholic churches continue without much protest, while the slightest attack on a mosque or synagogue arouses general outrage. Why talk about the desecration of graves in Catholic cemeteries, which go more or less unnoticed, while the degradation in cemeteries of the other two important religions, although clearly minority, are condemned and cause numerous protest demonstrations. The wokism and fashionable correct politics immediately censor any expression that sounds anti-Semitic, Muslim or Jewish. As if the Catholic Church felt guilty of the evangelization of other peoples, the supplanting of other cults by the Christian, the Crusades, in short, the religious dominance over a large part of the planet, the clergy directed from the Vatican have been ceding the ground to other beliefs and seems to renounce a place that leaves empty of spirituality. But the need for the spiritual seeks and finds that spirituality in the practice and faith of other religions, such as the Muslim one in its mild forms, or, for the moment in a minority, in the more aggressive and fanatical forms of Islamism.
Until now the heads of the pontificate had sought a certain neutrality in the name of religious ecumenism. For the first time, the Pope is originally from the American continent. A certain third worldism of a pontiff born in Argentina is logical. But his Holiness Francis seems to believe that the great replacement is the only possible future for Europe: the disappearance of Christianity in a continent populated by Islamists. Thus, the Pope cannot foresee the life of the Catholic Church except in Latin America.
In these reeling times of demolition of French culture and Western civilization, which could not stop spreading to other continents given the conquering character of Islamism, it would be necessary, if we want to survive a little longer, without ignoring the transience of human history, meditate on a phrase whose profound wisdom can lengthen our lives. Phrase by Paul Valéry, inscribed on the pediment of the Chaillot Palace in front of the Eiffel Tower: Nous, civilizations, savons que nous sommes mortelles.
This warning sounds loud today and many French people fear seeing the disappearance of their culture, their tradition and their spirituality.