Thank you, Pope Francis! / Have we entered an age of a new gnosticism?

the CEO of your corporation can do a whole lot of things that you can't...

Tell me about it. Not exactly the CEO, but our EVP decided she didn't like one of the rules in our Dress Code. She made an announcement at a departmental meeting that she didn't like it and was going to ignore it. After that, everyone ignored the Dress Code. Their attitude was, since she was going to ignore it, they could, too, and the Dress Code went to hell.

Since she was on the Executive Committee, the proper thing would have been to change the Dress Code in concert with the others on the committee and remove the rule that she didn't like, publish and communicate it, and THEN dress as she wished. Instead, she sent the wrong message to everyone: that they could ignore a rule they didn't like.

Great role model she made, and exactly my case in point on this thread.

Same with Pope Francis. The proper thing to do would have been to discuss it with the Cardinals (which is what the Pope usually does when considering changing canon law), decide exactly what the new practice would be, publish it and comminicate it to Catholics around the world so that they knew it had been changed and what it had been changed to, and THEN put it into practice Easter of 2014.

Bottom line: he makes a poor role model for priests, and encourages them to ignore/break the rules. Guess what's going to happen?

The special mention of "Muslim brothers" to which you refer happened on Good Friday, when Pope Francis was leading the Way of the Cross in Rome. This year, the meditations were written by a group of Lebanese youth, to place a special focus on the sufferings of Christians in the Middle East.

There were many references in the 14 Stations to the plight of minority Christians in the region, where wars have forced thousands to flee their homelands. The meditations called for an end to “violent fundamentalism,” terrorism and the “wars and violence." As you can see here -- Pope Francis' Stations of the Cross (Link) the whole program focused on the persecution of Christians.

The Pope, who lead the prayers, didn't actually give a talk until after the Stations. At that point he noted that Christians now continue the Passion of Christ in their daily lives.

Finally, he had been asked by the Lebanese youth group to recognize their Muslim neighbors and fellow-citizens who defended their rights. This is why Pope Francis praised "Muslim brothers" in particular on this particular occasion, and not Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs.

As expected, it always looks a little different when you know the whole story, doesn't it?

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130322_corpo-diplomatico_en.html

AUDIENCE WITH THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE ADDRESS OF POPE FRANCIS

Sala Regia Friday, 22 March 2013

One of the titles of the Bishop of Rome is Pontiff, that is, a builder of bridges with God and between people. My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced! My own origins impel me to work for the building of bridges. As you know, my family is of Italian origin; and so this dialogue between places and cultures a great distance apart matters greatly to me, this dialogue between one end of the world and the other, which today are growing ever closer, more interdependent, more in need of opportunities to meet and to create real spaces of authentic fraternity.

In this work, the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God. But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. At the Mass marking the beginning of my ministry, I greatly appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world. And it is also important to intensify outreach to non-believers, so that the differences which divide and hurt us may never prevail, but rather the desire to build true links of friendship between all peoples, despite their diversity.

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Francis' job is to spread and defend the faith, not go all buddy-buddy with a murderous cult whose one goal is dominance over all other religions and peoples. Islam thinks the Vatican would make a lovely mosque.

I truly fear the Lord, who says "Thou shall have no other gods before me," and do not want to be standing next to anybody who would accept that "Allah" is the God of Abraham.

About papal diplomacy --- wait, let's talk about the challenge in a broader sense.

I have read, but cannot verify, that there are millons of conversions from Islam to Christianity every year, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. I do not know that this is actually true: it might be sheer hype. But if you have a missionary desire in your heart to share faith in Jesus --- well, how can you talk to people if you're not on speaking terms with them?

I mean this very seriously. There's a University student in my city who is an aspiring Muslim rapper. I've followed his career just a bit because his father was by sons' soccer coach. Take a look at the video he released:

I Believe in Jesus - Mo Sabri (YouTube Link)

It's no great shakes musically, and ---well, here are the lyrics, which run along extremely shallow lines of "It's nice to be nice and Jesus was nice" --- that's not the point--- the point is, if you wanted to help Mo Sabri grow in understanding the real Jesus, what would you do?

He needs to leap from being a naive Muslim rapper to having a mature faith in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. True?

So what would be more productive? To say "I hate your murderous cult and I think the final solution is gonna be nuking Mecca"? Or would you make a better start by saying, "What does a Muslim like you find so attractive about Jesus?" and hope that a serious, friendly give-and-take about real Christian truth could plant seeds of doubt in his head about Islam.

Pope Francis' job is in the Gospel-spreading business. We know what approach he takes in diplomacy (which is by no means infallible: there are no miraculous claims made about papal diplomacy) -- and we also know the approach he took with the majority-Muslim boys and girls at the Youth Detention Center in Rome.

In the same circumstances --- if your job were the spread of the Gospel --- what approach would you take?

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