Posted on 09/20/2013 9:08:33 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Pope Francis offered an olive branch of sorts to the doctrine-minded, conservative wing of the Catholic Church on Friday as he denounced abortions as a symptom of today’s “throw-away culture” and encouraged Catholic doctors to refuse to perform them.
Francis issued a strong anti-abortion message and cited Vatican teaching on the need to defend the unborn during an audience with Catholic gynecologists.
It came a day after he was quoted as blasting the church’s obsession with “small-minded rules” that are driving the faithful away. In an interview that has sent shock waves through the church, Francis urged its pastors to focus on being merciful and welcoming rather than insisting only on such divisive, hot-button issues as abortion, gay marriage and contraception. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
this dude is a train wreck
/johnny
/johnny
The pope is opposed to abortion. And sodomy.
And... get this...
The pope is Catholic.
Take any news report, and ignore what's outside the quotation marks.
The pope's recent controversial words did not represent any change in Church doctrine. How could it? He was speaking in pastoral terms; specifically, how to reach out to self-described homosexuals, and those who advocate abortion, or who have been touched by abortion.
The pope never mentioned the condemnation of abortion as one of the small-minded rules. The media considers abortion one of those universal rights like divorce and adultery so they were the ones who lumped it all together.
It’s not the things he didn’t say that are bothering people. And the media.
It’s the things he DID say.
/johnny
he supposedly approved the Jesuit hack job initially, so what are we to believe?.....that he changed his mind, they switched the script, he’s bipolar?
who knows? the whole thing with getting a new Pope was shocking I thought
Exactly!
Not exactly the words of an infallible vicar.
Confidential to the Pope: sometimes it makes sense to draw a red line. Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing on a modern day abortorium.
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
"The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus.
"We have to find a new balance; 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 proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow."
I fear the pope is naive at best, as to how the media and the modern age will snatch at his words. Did he really mean that the Church's moral teachings are "disjointed?" Does he not realize that by saying in this particular context that not all moral teachings are equivalent, which of course they are not, he affirms those who decide for themselves that abortion is a minor sexual transgression, unimportant, and not murder?
As Rod Dreher says, imagine if the pope had said the Church spends too much time talking about the poor and powerless, when all that matters is Jesus gave us salvation. The media and the libertines would not be saluting him, oh finally we have a good pope.
http://americamagazine.org/pope-interview
for those who want to read what the Pope actually said, as opposed to what the AP tells you he said.
>>>I’m glad that he’s against abortion, but isn’t he the same guy who said, “Who am I to judge” just the other day?>>>
You misread the statement. Who am I to judge says the priests should be preaching redemption instead of merely preaching against abortion. Forgiveness and redemption is an old teaching of the Catholic Church.
Hi “can’t we all just get along” attitude is nauseating. Maybe he’s the church’s answer to Bam.
Not at all. I saw the actual interview, and the media was if anything, understating what he said.
The Pope himself used those words, and they were used in context of evil conservatives trying to enforce orthodoxy.
He says elsewhere that he is amazed by how many complaints Rome gets from people complaining of orthodoxy not being followed! Unreal!
What a total disaster. He will have to answer to God when he dies!
Keep in mind that the Holy Father was speaking to Catholics.
Engaged Catholics actually know their faith, which means they know and understand exactly what he said, but also the teaching of the 2000 years behind what he said.
The media and the uninformed will pretend to be Catholic long enough to write about something of which they know from little to nothing, left only to cherry pick quotes and actually rearrange context, out of utter ignorance and not a little anti-Catholic sentiment.
If not so increasingly pathetic, the disarray would be hilarious. It used to be. The radicalism of outsiders these days is making it not to damn funny any more.
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