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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:30 pm Post subject: Pope Francis: Catholic Church Is Too ‘Obsessed’ With ... |
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Abortion, Birth Control, And Gay Marriage.
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In one of the first lengthy interviews he has given since ascending to the papacy in March, Pope Francis said he believes the Catholic Church has grown too “obsessed” with social issues like abortion, birth control, and gay marriage. The pope’s statement is a sharp departure from many of the other leaders in the Church, who have recently been pressuring him to take a stronger stance on those issues.
“It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” Pope Francis told an Italian outlet. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent.”
U.S. Catholic Bishops have been criticized for focusing almost exclusively on social issues — like advocating against marriage equality and fighting against Obamacare’s birth control benefit — at the expense of the Church’s other teachings on social justice issues.
But the leader of the Catholic Church said that the religion needs to “find a new balance” on the moral teachings that it prioritizes. “Otherwise, even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel,” the pope explained.
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When I suggested something not dissimilar, Titus said my objection was that the Pope was Catholic. Well, I guess he's not Catholic.
Seriously though, the Catholic Church has many good messages which even non-believers can benefit from hearing. It would be nice to hear more about them, and less about condoms. Gay marriage especially is silly for the church to pontificate about; the modern "serial divorce" marriage that exists in America already strongly diverges from Catholic ideals, so it's not as if letting gays get in on the action is going to spoil some otherwise pristine institution. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| This is obvious. Its sad how the Pope's embrace of Christianity's core teachings appear so shocking to some. |
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GF
Joined: 26 Sep 2012
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| Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| article wrote: |
| In the United States, Catholic laypeople tend to disagree with the stance that the Bishops have staked out on social issues. Most Catholics support marriage equality, and a full 82 percent of Catholics think birth control is morally acceptable. And 63 percent of Catholics support a woman’s right to choose and don’t favor overturning Roe v. Wade. |
His flock could do with more catechesis on these topics, not less. But if he still wants a change of pace, he could start by letting them know what a heretic is, and what kind of eternal reward their evil opinions will earn them. If he has any clear idea of it himself, that is. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 4:30 am Post subject: |
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The pope replies: “Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.
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“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.” |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time |
Then don't. State the opinion firmly and be done with it.
Demanding that Catholicism "get with the times" serves as a wedge to destroy the church from within. Liberals practice entryism. You chip away from the inside and the, to use Marxist lingo, superstructure collapses from the outside. Catholics will be further divided between old and new, with the old (the base of actual believers) demoralized and marginalized.
Jim, a reactionary blogger, describes:
http://blog.jim.com/culture/the-last-pope.html
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In the first step of entryism, entryists enter the group, whether the Communist Party, the Republican Party, the Roman Catholic Church, the State Department, or whatever, claiming to agree with group beliefs and support group goals, while in fact supporting the progressive interpretation of group beliefs and supporting progressive goals incompatible with group goals.
In the next step of entryism, non entryists are removed from power, or destroyed by character assassination, (someone remembers being fondled as a child forty years ago, though he never mentioned it until recently) or destroyed physically by actual physical assassination.
In the next step of entryism, entryists are quietly in power, still purporting to agree with group beliefs and support group goals, while in fact supporting the progressive interpretation of group beliefs and supporting progressive goals incompatible with group goals. The organization officially pursues its original goals and officially adheres to its original beliefs, but not really. It starts to wither away.
In the next step, the organization officially and overtly supports the progressive interpretation of group beliefs and supports progressive goals.
In the final step, the organization disappears altogether, its assets and personnel fully absorbed into the Cathedral. The physical Vatican will become a tourist attraction, and the organizational Vatican will become a letterhead issued from the desk of a minor NGO minion, whose physical location and postal address will probably be rather close to Harvard. The letterhead, to the extent that it is used at all, will be used to directly support progressive goals, such as transexuality, higher taxes, open borders for the non working underclass, and gay marriage, without referring to the now forgotten reinterpretation of Roman Catholic goals.
At first it will not be that people realize that the papacy ended with Pope Benedict, but rather that they will forget that it supposedly continues, just as the Roman Empire in the west supposedly continued, until people forgot that it was supposedly continuing. Later, historians will wonder when it ended, and will set a date, and will set a last Pope, and that last Pope will have been Benedict. |
"The Cathedral" is insular reactionary language for global progressivism, anchored by foundations, media, universities and the bureaucracy. |
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GF
Joined: 26 Sep 2012
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| Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
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| The pope replies: “Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation. |
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Leaving room for uncertainty with respect to oneself, to opinions, to the latest science, to personal spiritual experiences, to questions of prudence, etc., only makes sense. St. Paul tells us “not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety”.
But uncertainty is not the proper attitude with respect to Catholic articles of belief, many of which are, as you know, defined infallibly.
Francis talks of answers. To have absolute certainty in answers which the Church has provided authoritatively can only be described as a pre-eminent virtue. The Baltimore Catechism, in common use in the US until Vatican II, was structured in a question and answer format, with clear and firm responses to headings like “Why did God make us?”, “What are some of the perfections of God?”, and “What are the chief spiritual works of mercy?” Traditionally speaking, the Church does not shy away from providing clear answers to life’s fundamental philosophical and existential questions.
The first spiritual work of mercy, by the way, is “to admonish the sinner.” The second is "to instruct the ignorant." Unfortunately for Francis, "to encourage the liberal" is nowhere to be found. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:45 am Post subject: ... |
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| I'm not religious, but...a Pope addressing the church's relevance instead of demanding the church's relevance? Cool. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| Anytime someone who has little desire to be a Catholic or little interest in religion period starts talking about "What the Church should do", I generally ignore it. In cases where they have an active stake, that's fine. But I wouldn't take their opinions into much consideration when it comes to interpreting, implementing, and practicing their faith and Church tenets. It makes as much sense as a Catholic wishing to change the stances of an atheist organization. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:19 am Post subject: |
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| The Catholic Church is still swimming in loot, so I'm sure they'll be fine for awhile. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| Anytime someone who has little desire to be a Catholic or little interest in religion period starts talking about "What the Church should do", I generally ignore it. In cases where they have an active stake, that's fine. But I wouldn't take their opinions into much consideration when it comes to interpreting, implementing, and practicing their faith and Church tenets. It makes as much sense as a Catholic wishing to change the stances of an atheist organization. |
The Catholic Church is a major force in politics, so no you're wrong, If the church didn't involve itself in the secular sphere you'd have a point, but they do and it is extensive. |
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GF
Joined: 26 Sep 2012
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| Anytime someone who has little desire to be a Catholic or little interest in religion period starts talking about "What the Church should do", I generally ignore it. In cases where they have an active stake, that's fine. But I wouldn't take their opinions into much consideration when it comes to interpreting, implementing, and practicing their faith and Church tenets. |
I wouldn't go that far. The preferences of heretics and non-Catholics can be useful as an index of what the Church should not do, since they evidently prefer anything which tends to compromise Her. They may possibly object that they have Her best interests in mind, but they are unbelievers with no sensus catholicus, so in these matters generally cannot be taken seriously.
If people like Fox, Kuros, and Nowhere Man can suspend their personal satisfaction for a moment, the fact that Francis' interview leaves the gamut of hardened liberals well-pleased, and scandalizes serious Catholics, should enable them to see that there's something strange here. All is not well with the hierarchy of the Church, and hasn't been for several decades.
Not for the first time. During the the fourth century the hierarchy grew rotten with the Arian heresy (which denies the divinity of Christ). It fell to the more pious elements of the laity to sustain orthodoxy, and inspire a small cadre of bishops to victory over the Arians who dominated the Church. John Henry Cardinal Newman writes:
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[I]n that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of Our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the [laity] than by the [hierarchy] ... at one time the Pope, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great sees, at other times general councils said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the Christian people, who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed without them.
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The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. |
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In contrast with Francis' opinions on the need to downplay sexual morality, we can set a recent, low-key interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, whom Francis might disparagingly call a "restorationist":
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The alarming rapidity of the realization of the homosexual agenda ought to awaken all of us and frighten us with regard to the future of our nation. This is a work of deceit ... There is only one place these types of lies come from, namely Satan....
We as Catholics have not properly combatted it because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years [i.e., since Vatican II]. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention....
After fifty years of this, we have many adult voters who support politicians with immoral positions because they do not know their Catholic Faith... |
The second work of spiritual mercy: instructing the ignorant.
Francis says "who am I to judge?" Burke says:
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| What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity. Charity means speaking the truth... |
The first work of spiritual mercy: admonishing sinners.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/21/Vatican-s-Cardinal-Burke-Tolerance-Has-Been-Falsely-Exalted-As-The-Virtue-Which-Governs-All-Other-Virtues
Poor Cardinal Burke might not appreciate being quoted against Pope Francis. Nevertheless, the opposition is clearly there - I'm not inventing it.
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If Francis wanted to spend more time ...
a) warding his flock from strenuously condemned errors like Americanism, Liberalism, Indifferentism, and Modernism
b) inculcating reverence for the Latin Mass and the Eucharist
c) bringing them back to the confessional
d) encouraging traditional prayers like the hours, the way of the cross, the angelus, the litany of the saints, and above all the rosary
e) encouraging works of true spiritual and corporal mercy
... then we could countenance less airtime for sexual morality. Unfortunately, based on his history, he has no such intentions; he wants to concentrate on "Christianity's core teachings" like "respect" and "tolerance", "liberation theology" and "ecumenism". |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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| the pope wrote: |
| The pope replies: “Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation. |
Just to bring this in from our earlier conversation, GF, the pope, the leader of your religious order agrees with me about the value of doubt. Funny how that works out sometimes.
Is it crass to suggest that the church might have lost some of it's legitimacy in regards to sexual morality in light of it's not so distant history. To say that all is not well in the hierarchy of the church seems like a bit of an understatement.
I think it's totally appropriate for people who are not Catholics to view the pope as a political figure, and given that the Vatican is it's own state the pope is indeed a political figure. If the church doesn't want other people interfering in it's business, than it would have to give up it's political role in the rest of the world. As a political figure, I find the new pope preferable to previous one, and according to the TOS of this site we can't talk about religion so any conversation here will have to be through this prism. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: Pope Francis: Catholic Church Is Too ‘Obsessed’ With |
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| Fox wrote: |
Seriously though, the Catholic Church has many good messages which even non-believers can benefit from hearing. |
Except any message from them is backed by serious delusions.
Intelligent people don't need messages from them.
The benefit would be greatest if the pope would ask his followers to stop believing and start reading non-religious books. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:06 pm Post subject: Re: Pope Francis: Catholic Church Is Too ‘Obsessed’ With |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
Seriously though, the Catholic Church has many good messages which even non-believers can benefit from hearing. |
Except any message from them is backed by serious delusions.
Intelligent people don't need messages from them.
The benefit would be greatest if the pope would ask his followers to stop believing and start reading non-religious books. |
You and I do not agree with the cosmology in which Catholics put their faith, but that doesn't mean we cannot acknowledge their good intentions, or even their good advice. Good advice remains good advice no matter the speaker, and the Church is in a position to speak loudly and clearly if it so desires.
Unfortunately, it's squandering that position by bitching about condoms and gays instead of injustices of economic, military, and legal varieties. Even if condoms and homosexuality are "evil" (and I'm not saying they are), they're "evils" to which one willfully subjects oneself. By contrast, economic, military, and legal evils are ones to which one is subjected by others; one cannot simply choose to be no longer subject to the predations of usurers, the violence of the military, or the grasp of unjust laws. It's clear which is more urgently in need of reform vis a vis broader society and government.
GF calls himself a serious Catholic. I agree with that characterization, and as a serious Catholic, he'll have a good sense of how the Church can efficaciously communicate with Catholics. What he lacks -- and what this Pope might have -- is an idea of how the Church can efficaciously communicate with non-Catholics, so as to at least achieve some good. |
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