The Holy Father recently met with and addressed the assembled diplomatic corps in Vatican City.
After reaffirming the Church's unwavering commitment to the poor--as evidenced by his chosen regnal name--the Holy Father had this to say about another kind of poverty:
But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism”, which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples. And that brings me to a second reason for my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.
Can I get an AMEN!
Pope Francis 1) affirms the pernicious existence of relativism; 2) refers to BXVI's now-famous homily delivered before he was elected to the Chair of Peter; 3) links true peace with Truth; and 4) undermines individualism by citing charity!
That loud BOOM! you heard last week was Richard McBrien's head exploding.
John Allen notes, "Based on Friday's speech, at least, anyone who saw his election as a repudiation of the broad philosophical and theological outlook of Benedict XVI probably has another think coming."
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AMEN!
ReplyDeleteJust a little bit more of fine-tuning and sooner than we think Francis' papacy will be firing on all cylinders...!
ReplyDeleteI do like that "so-called richer countries." First, it makes the point that material wealth isn't the only kind of wealth. Second, it suggests a double standard between rich and poor -- I haven't seen him quoted as referring to "the so-called poor" -- that is pretty much straight out of Scripture. Third, to call him on it -- "But surely, Holy Father, those countries are *called* richer because they *are* richer" -- is to condemn those countries for not helping the poor ("If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains.").
ReplyDeleteAlas, the so-called richer countries were just paupers who managed to fraudulently build their wealth because they owned the international financial system. A system devoid of substance and purely based on the people in the poorer countries and of their own to have confidence in it, also known as a con game. Of course, we're witnessing its coming crumbling down. History is not without irony.
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