How modernists use ‘weaponized orthodoxy’ to silence conservative Catholics By Seán Wright for Life Site News
Some recent words from Pope Francis cast this mode of gaslighting in stark relief.
“Weaponized ambiguity” has become a common term in recent discussions about the crisis in the Church. It refers to ambiguous terms that were supposedly inserted into Vatican II as preparation for the chaos we now see around us. Leaving aside the question of whether ambiguity is the main problem of Vatican II (as opposed to contradiction of Church teaching), let us look at another concept, “weaponized orthodoxy,” which been used against sincere Catholics for decades.
Last month, Pope Francis said:
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[Vatican II] is the Magisterium of the Church. Either you are with the Church and therefore you follow the Council or you interpret it in your own way, as you desire, you do not stand with the Church. [There can be] no concessions to those who seek to present a catechesis that does not agree with the Magisterium of the Church.
Rather than wrangling over the content of Vatican II, or putting some fanciful interpretation on what Francis says (such as that he is defending a “hermeneutic of continuity”), let’s be real and consider what this statement is intended to do.
It is intended to browbeat conservative Catholics into accepting Vatican II and its “Spirit,” to frighten them away from traditionalist positions that reject or question these things, and to ostracise traditionalists as somehow “outside the Church.” And left unsaid but lurking in the background is the great and fearsome dogma (that really only conservatives and traditionalists believe) that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.
How do we know that this is Francis’s intention? We can ask ourselves the simple questions: since when does he care about people being subject to the Magisterium? Since when does he care about people being outside the Church?
