Posted on 10/20/2014 6:49:12 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
About midway through the first week of debates and deliberations, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, addressed a mixed crowd of prelates, diplomats and journalists at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and cited a sports analogy thats become quite popular among Franciss American fans. Franciss strategy is a little like taking someone to a baseball game when they dont really know the rulesand maybe didnt care much about them.
Under Francis, the Church wants to bring people back into the stadium, as it were. They see the crowds, they smell the hot dogs, said Dolan, playing out the metaphor. They get a cold beer. Theyre watching the batting practice, the national anthem. They watch the ballgames and the teams, and theyre gradually enchanted and they gradually get into it, Dolan said, implying that the Catholic Church with its pomp, ceremony, incense and Gregorian chants could be equally appealing. Once theyre inside, he says, then they begin to ask some questions about the whys and the rules and why this and why not that.
That, he says, is how Pope Francis hopes not just to bring people to the Catholic Church, but to bring the Church to the people. Rather than ministering only to the officially worthy, minister to everyonegay, divorced, disenchantedand then worry about making them worthy. Dont lead with the chin, dont lead with controversy, Dolan said. Dont even lead with the mouth. Lead with the heart and youre going to win a lot of people.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
I try to be clever and then I fail to edit my own typing.
Correction: You’ve been reading that book AGAIN, haven’t you?
(the Bible)
“Theres sure some fierce competition to get these homosexuals into churches.”
About 3% of the population is gay. Yet the church must expend unlimited effort to attract them to church if it is to grow. But more traditional people - millions of them - are to be treated with disdain and ignored by the church or even driven away. We are told that is the way to make the church grow.
There are no Gregorian Chants or incense in the masses most Catholics attend.
The ceremony of the mass is only meaningful if it is a celebration of the love Jesus has for us. It is only moving if it is a sincere, heartfelt celebration of the Last Supper and an attempt to open your heart to the love of God.
As mere entertainment, like a baseball game, it is empty repetition and a boring hour.
If you do not believe in the eternal truths and do not endeavor to live your life by them it is simply a waste of time.
Minister to all as Christ did, but the message has to be repentance. That’s also as Christ did.
My wife was raised and confirmed as a Catholic, but I have never joined. If the Catholic church does split, I will join the true traditionalist Church.
He should be running the gays out — specifically out of the priesthood.
Time to put an end to their molestations of children.
I knew a kid in high school who was queer. His ambition was to be a Catholic priest, because it was the perfect cover for his perversion, and he had heard that seminary was basically like an extended stay in a bathhouse. Far as I ever knew he achieved his goal.
Soon people will stop relying on any church and just make their own pact with God and His Son.
Maybe Pope Francis will surprise the media soon with sort of a “get behind me satan” moment?
it’s so hurtful to explain to sinners that they are sinning and need to change. it takes away from the fun of the ballgame. and the beer. and the wieners.
I predict that two years from now Frances will no longer be pope.
What’s Dolan talking about? The Catholic Church dumped beauty in liturgy, music, architecture, etc. decades ago to try to “reach out”. That was crap then and it’s crap now.
What’s funny is that in the Catholic Church, open, unrepentant sinners ARE members. What they can’t do is receive Communion.
The way the “Communion-for-pro-aborts” crowd talks, you’d think people were DROPPING DEAD by the millions all around the world because they can’t go to Communion.
People often use the expression “the gates of hell” in a manner that suggests that the gates of hell are running around, attacking here, attacking there.
So the Catholic Church becomes a Rick Warren seeker church.
It’s not a question of welcoming homosexuals. God’s forgiveness is available to anyone. We all walk in filthy with sin and hopefully we are welcome.
The important question being addressed is whether the Church will pretend that homosexual behavior is not a sin.
“I try to be clever and then I fail to edit my own typing.”
I got it anyway :)
It’s about time. Priests and monks have been gay since the time of St. Peter. You stick a bunch of dudes in a monastery with no chicks around, what do you think is going to happen?
“they smell the hot dogs”
Well then.
Church will not split. Those duped by heresy will walk out, like the Traditionalists. Very sad. But Jesus knows the heart of those leaving and those staying and who asks for mercy and who does not.
The Church is not for the healthy but the sick - we are all sick! You don’t want the “worse” sinners around you like the laborers in the field didn’t want the short-timers paid equally. Enough to reject your own Church? Heaven?
Ye of little faith.
The pope stole a relic in his mind. I steal from Adoration all the time and later the next week return the book, occasionally adding some.
Openly gay receive communion, so do birth controllers, adulterers, pornographers, embezelors, five finger discounters, sex outside of marriagers - and all will go to hell for offending Christ, unless He has mercy on them all the same.
But the Church will never condone that. God said so. So why do you fear? Trust in Jesus. Be not afraid. Bible, God, Angels, visions, all tell you the same thing, yet you fear?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.