Rorate Caeli

Dictionary of Contemporary Theology: "Bergoglianism"

Berg·o·glian·ism
noun

A spiritual disease of Argentinian origin first found in the early twenty-first century and thought to be the result of a localization and intensification of various strains of mid-late twenty-century modernism. Initial symptoms include institutional and ritual iconoclasm, incomprehension of the nature, duties and limits of one’s office, irresponsible utterances in public, incessant nepotism and a propensity gratuitously to insult one’s collaborators, officials and clergy.


If not treated immediately the pathology advances rapidly towards heresy. Secondary symptoms include a pastoralism that promotes sacramental heteropraxy, megalomanial pretensions, a refusal to engage in substantial, critical or collegial dialogue with one’s collaborators or to respond with evangelical clarity (cf. Mt 5:37) to substantial questions duly posed, episodes of extreme anger, and vindictive aggression towards one’s junior officials.

For those whose spiritual nutrition is sound Bergoglianism is not normally contagious. Persons with indications of Modernism in any of its forms, or Ultramontanism, are at high risk of infection.

In its secondary form Bergolianism is, save for supernatural intervention, spiritually terminal.

[Medieval Ligurian bergoglio, of unknown origin; see Olio in the Dictionary of Indo-European vegetable words. Article by Father XY.]