"Popular Catholicism" and Its Proponents; The Church's Civil War Grows

There's something out there called "popular Catholicism" (or 'popular theology').

...Pope Francis recently affirmed the importance of what he called a “free and responsible” form of Catholic theology—a “creative fidelity”—in the life of the Church. Speaking before a Vatican gathering of 100 members of the Italian Theological Association last month, Pope Francis advised the theologians to remain “anchored” to the teachings of Vatican II, by “proclaiming the Gospel in a new way” to a rapidly changing world....

OK, so?

...From the first days of his pontificate, Pope Francis has privileged a form of “Popular Catholicism” that prioritizes the insights, the beliefs, and the practices that emerge from the people themselves. The word “popular” does not refer to “prevalent,” rather, it refers to the religious practices and beliefs that emerge from the people themselves—not the priests. Emphasizing the contextual nature of all theological reflection, “Popular Catholicism” maintains that theology must always be cultural and historical....

 Oh.  Sorta like Calvinism being Swiss and Anglican being English.  Because theology cannot be just "Catholic", oh no oh no.

[Beginning in South America] ...Popular Catholicism was originally a symbol of freedom—a rejection of the colonial dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Spain. A leader of this movement has been theologian Orlando Espin, a professor of religious studies at the University of San Diego...

Well, a full Professor at a Catholic College!!   What could go wrong??

...Highly respected by left-leaning national and international theologians, Espin was awarded the highest honor last year from the Catholic Theological Society of America—the world’s largest professional society of Catholic theologians. Receiving the John Courtney Murray Award for his “lifetime of distinguished theological achievement,” Espin, a priest of the Orlando diocese who no longer appears to function as a priest, and is currently married to his same-sex partner, thanked his “husband,” Ricardo Gallego, during his acceptance speech....

Oh, yah.  THAT could go wrong.

Well, certainly, with Pp. Francis and the CTSA award-winner being proponents, there can be no opponents of any merit, right?

....Both Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict had spoken harshly about the dangers of a Church that was “born of the people.” Pope St. John Paul II gave a stern rebuke to the Latino theologians in 1983—publishing a letter to the Nicaraguan bishops denouncing the “people’s church” in especially harsh terms. In a speech that was reported on the pages of The New York Times on March 5, 1983, the pontiff predicted that “The Church born of the people is a new invention that is both absurd and of perilous character … only with difficulty, could it avoid being infiltrated by strangely ideological connotations.” In 1984, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger offered An Instruction On Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation in which he warned about the dangers of the “diverse theological positions,” and the “badly defined doctrinal frontiers” of this movement.....

Ummmnnhhhnnn.  Oh.   OK, so, how could this possibly happen?

...The confusion in the Latin Church today results, at least in part, from the importation of the antinomian culture of the 1960s into the very sanctuary, in the form of an open-ended liturgy with options, inculturations, adaptations, and a vastly impoverished code of rubrics. Whatever may be its social merits or demerits, antinomianism is an unsustainable liturgical philosophy.....

Or, looking at the same problem (the liturgy) with slightly different lenses, you have Cdl. Burke:  

...Burke remarked on December 15 that the liturgy was damaged after Second Vatican Council by anthropocentrism, a concept of the liturgy not as a gift of God to us but as a creation or invention of our own.....

These “harmful experiments” have entered into the liturgy, along with a very worldly vision of the liturgical action “that is antithetical to the liturgy and extremely harmful.”

Antinomianism doesn't work well in theology, either, people.

Pray.  Oremus.  Pray. Semper Oremus.