HEAR
YE! I'm tired of orthodox Catholics bitchin' about Pope Francis. I'm
sure the Devil loves hearing the self-righteous wailing of Catholics who
think that they know the faith better than the Vicar of Christ.
Francis isn't interested in America's culture war. . .he has an
international to Church to run. The Church in the US is NOT the center
of the Catholic universe.
BOTTOM-LINE: He's the Pope, or he isn't. Choose.
____________
Thank You! Been wanting to hear that!
ReplyDeleteIt seems your pushing a cult of personality. Is he the Pope, yes. Is he upholding the Faith? Yes but not very well and he would not be the first Pope to be less than stellar in that regard. Besides if need be we have plenty of orthodox bishops that can play the part of Paul and correct him to his face.
ReplyDeleteNo. I'm the last person in the Church to push personality cults. Never cared much for celebrities. . .papal or otherwise. My point is: he's the pope, let him do his job. And there's no sense in helping the devil tear down the Church by nit-picking everything the pope says.
DeleteHe is the Pope but he doesn´t hold up the Faith. It´s a pity that so few are able to realise this and this has nothing to do with a Culture war, it´s about the deposit of the Faith.
DeleteI´m glad that a least a few realise that he is a Modernist. The main dangers in listening to a Modernist are first that the people get the wrong idea what the gospel really means. I hate to say it but Pope Francis always distorts the meaning of the Gospel.
How do I know this? After my conversion when I had learned that contrary to the false opinion of the Protestants we need the Magisterium of the Catholic Church to explain the Gospel I purchased a reprint of a Bible with magisterial explanations approved by Pope St. Pius X. in 1903. And therefore I always shiver when I read or hear Pope Francis´ own explanations. I really ask myself if he has attented a course in Alinsky´s religious techniques how to turn Biblical thought inside-out:
http://media.speroforum.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Martin/Block/Volume%20III%20-%20Ideology3.pdf (see for example page 12 and 13)
The second danger is that he ignores the Dogmas of the Catholic Church especially on justification so that people get the impression that one can be saved even in the state of mortal sin.
John Vennari explains in this video what is wrong with “following your conscience” and what Pope Francis should have said about everyone´s duty to acquire a well formed conscience.
http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/c08683e3fc9b66f88dc5323418ae3634-145.html
Martina, what did Catholics do before Pope Pius X? Did "true Catholicism" begin in 1903? Why pick 1903? Why not 1803? Or 1603? Or 303? Even if Francis is a modernist -- which he isn't -- it wouldn't make any difference. The Pope is preserved from error in matters of faith and morals when he teaches formally as the Pope. Do you believe that? If not, then why should we accept Pius X's teachings? If so, then, what's the problem?
DeleteBut he can fudge the faith or not speak the faith clearly and lead people to error. There is nothing wrong with some in the Church taking the Pope to task when he is not being clear. In fact that is down right Catholic. The Pope is not God, he is responsible to the Faith and to the People. This whole we have to love the Pope and speak well of him all the time that began with John XXIII is starting to distort our understanding that the Faith is far more important and larger than the Pope. Also there has been 265 Popes that we can check him against to see how he is doing. And I think this is a legitimate question to ask, "Does he stand closer to Pope Gregory the Great or the some time Pope Honorius (ironically enough known as a People's Pope)?"
DeleteThe kind of reason why a couple of years ago I became a pacifist in the Culture War.
ReplyDeleteSo there's no culture war in Europe or Latin America? And is an interview with the Pope a magisterial statement that we must accept with religious submission of will and intellect and must not question?
ReplyDeleteThere's a culture war everywhere. . .but each war is fought differently, using different terms, tools, symbols, etc. Francis is South American and the CW there isn't being fought on the same terms that we fight it here.
DeleteI never said/wrote that a newspaper interview is a magisterial statement.
Frankly I don't see that any of the commentary has anything specifically to do with US culture wars at all. I don't know where you come up with that. The Pope is making public statements on ostensibly universal issues, and we're simply supposed to accept every jot and tittle that he says and not allowed to express concern? I'm not even sure he is fighting the battle for faith. I suppose all of what he says might be interpreted in an orthodox way with the proper explanation, but the secular media won't present it that way and many, including Catholics, won't bother to read it that way. The Pope has magisterial authority, so he should be careful and considered in what he says. A little more precision and clarity would be helpful. If you're saying that proselytization is rubbish, I think you owe the world a duty to explain that what you mean by proselytization is different from evangelization, because I know a lot of people, including many non-Catholics, who think the Pope is giving up on the great commission. We're supposed to be working on a "New Evangelization". So the widespread belief that the Pope just trashed evangelization shouldn't be addressed and we should just keep our mouth shut? And saying that everyone has their own view of good and evil and should just follow that, without saying anything about how it is the natural law is written on men's deepest hearts, and that that is what should be followed, and the dangers of a malformed conscience, will simply lead people to think the Pope is teaching moral relativism, which Pope Benedict and indeed Pope Francis previously specifically criticized. These are not minor issues to be overlooked. So the Pope will win kudos from liberals and Catholic dissenters who think he is subtly or less subtly overturning Catholic teaching, how is that genuinely converting hearts and minds to Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith?
ReplyDeleteThe Pope has magisterial authority when he's speaking magisterially. A newspaper interview is not a magisterial document.
DeleteThe media are liars and thieves. Anything the Pope says or writes will be distorted for their preferred narrative. . .so, trying to parse words and phrases to satisfy them is pointless.
Nothing the Pope has said is contrary to Church teaching. He might not be phrasing things in the way we'd prefer, but the central message is clear and perfectly orthodox.
What I mean by "he's not interested in the American culture war" is that he's not carefully framing his answers in such a way that they can't be co-opted by our cultural enemies. . .why?. . .b/c he doesn't understand our enemies in the way that we do. He's from a largely Catholic country with a long history of economic oppression and military dictatorship.
Come gather 'round people wherever you roam,
ReplyDeleteAnd admit that the waters around you have grown,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone,
If your time to you is worth saving',
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone,
For the times they are a changin'.
Ludi, I'm just as tired of CathProgs trying -- desperately, vainly -- to turn the Holy Father into a Nuns on the Bus LCWR sister.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteLudi, once again, you can stop trying to put your leftist propaganda on my blog. I will delete it. . .every.single.time.
DeleteI agree. We need to stop looking at things through the lens of politics and power and start using the lens of the Gospel. I think what Pope Francis is doing is the same as the father in the prodigal son and older son. He is speaking renewal to both the lax and the rigid. The older complains that he always did as commanded and he never got the attention that the lax is now getting. Difference being that the lax was sorry in the story(the culture is not, but some individuals might be) and the media is only going to pass on what is critical of the rigid. Kind of like the younger brother rightly or wrongly saying, "Dad said don't be so hard on me!" So let us, "Ask not what the Pope can do for you, ask what you can do for the Pope to help reach the lost!"
ReplyDeleteAlso another thing that has helped me is that where JPII and B16 both preached truth with love, Francis is now preaching love with truth. Both similar and profoundly different. Because we are fallen imperfect creatures we have to choose one before the other, where Christ preached both love and truth, truth and love, at the same time. Because God is both at the same time.
.....from Confessions of St. Augustine-36......
ReplyDelete"But tell me, Lord, You who alone reign without arrogance, because You alone are the true Lord who have no Lord: tell me whether a third kind of temptation has passed from me or can it ever pass wholly in this life........the desire to be feared and loved by men for no other reason than the joy I get from it, which is no true joy? It is a lamentable state, a base vaingloriousness. From this it comes that men neither love You utterly nor fear You with righteous fear: thus it is that You resist the proud but give grace to the humble: You thunder upon the ambition of this world..........the enemy of our true beatitude presses hard upon me, spreading all about me his snare of Well done, Well done; and while I receive praises too eagerly, I lose caution and am caught by them, and so separate my joy from 'the truth' and place it in the deceitfulness of men: and in this way the enemy has me like himself---not in any concord of charity, of course, but in the fellowship of like punishment.......the devil who resolved 'to establish his throne in the north', that men darkened and frozen may serve him while he makes perverse and distorted imitation of You.
A man who wishes to be praised by men when You do not praise him, will not be defended by men when You judge him, nor delivered by men when You condemn him. But it can happen, not that a sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, not that a man is blessed who does ungodlily, but that he is praised on account of some gift that you have given him: even so, if he rejoices more because he is praised than because he has the gift, then this man too is praised by men but blamed by You, and the man who praised him is better than himself who is praised: for the one took pleasure in God's gift in man, whereas the other took more pleasure in what man gave than in what God gave."
Viva Cristo Rey!
Here here!
ReplyDeleteWhere where?
DeleteAmericans make up 4% of the Catholic Church. I bring that up every couple of years when I get tired of listening to people say that to solve our diocese's problems, the Pope needs to change this or that. They look at me like I have two heads. I think some of them would guess the percentage is about 50%.
ReplyDeleteMarie
With respect, Father, this post is not your finest hour. I know of nothing in Catholic doctrine which requires anyone to believe that the Holy Spirit prevents the Bishop of Rome from massive and irresponsible imprudence. For someone who is always going on about how the Church has to meet people "where they are", Francis seems utterly immune to understanding where the Western-based global press, not just the US, are, that they are an implacable foe of Catholicism, and will easily spin his words against the actual meaning of Catholic doctrine. That's the truth. And it's pastoral.
ReplyDeleteGood! My frustration came through loud and clear! And you heard my central claim: the press in the US is an implacable foe of Catholicism. . .given that, it really doesn't pay for the Holy Father to waste his time carefully parsing his words when those words -- no matter how carefully parsed -- will be distorted and spun to serve the media's anti-Catholic agenda. Francis' agenda is focused on eternity not the next election cycle or the next quarterly report. Orthodox Catholic do nothing more than feed the media's agenda by attacking Francis when he is doing nothing more than preaching the gospel. He couldn't give a rat's @$$ about our culture wars. The Church has been there and done that. . .for about 2000 plus years now.
Delete