Posted on 09/19/2013 1:04:30 PM PDT by NYer
I like him, too, even when he’s talking about my sins!
The standard is Christ, and none of us reaches it, but with the Holy Spirit we can grow more like Him.
There is something actually refreshing, invigorating and life giving when facing’s one sinful nature. Only then (in my experience and reading) can we really approach God with a humble heart. And He’ll let us see our sinful nature when we want to see. And then, we can experience His unconditional love, since we belong to Him. I always think like a loving father and mother love their little child even if the child is dirty and misbehaved. Of course, child must be corrected and bathed, but even that is done with love - even if firm!
You say it's like he's saying, "The Pope tells people, “Hey, I’m fat too! And I get short of breath too! Isn’t it wonderful God made us like this!”
I don't see it. From what he actually says on a daily basis (not headlines, captions, and ledes -- where the predictable MSM spin usually is --- but in the words) the Pope is clearly talking about honesty, repentance ("a spirit of penance"), and evangelism (pointing souls "who were dwelling in darkness" toward Christ the Light).
Am I wrong?
Well said!
Amazing how people are not seeing the meaning.
(I’m also reminded of something I think Khalil Gibran said, read a couple of his little books as a teenager):
I love my child not because he is good, but because he is my little child.
And when a child is loved like that, he generally WANTS to be good!
My children want to be impossible!
“Then the pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”
From an old Southern Baptist, I don’t see how the most fighting fundy can do anything other than shout amen to this, but I’m sure someone will find something wrong with it.
On Twitter:
@NARAL
Dear Pope Francis, thank you. Signed, #prochoice women
That really is an exquisitely elegant comment you made, but y’all are looking at the pope’s statements through a kind of predisposed-to-praise set of optics (which is fine; he’s the pope), whereas some of the rest of us are seeing the immediately observable fruits (orgiastic cheering and whooping by death culture and deviancy advocates). Considering the consequences, it is is hard to see how the church’s goals were advanced by this interview. As I said in the other thread, if confession queues swell and RCIA classes see a surge of registrations by these folks I guess the pope had it right all along.
Yes, you are wrong. He makes no mention of repentance. In fact, he says:
“In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.”
You can’t “interfere” with someone else’s spiritual life? The church doesn’t want to confront their sin, but do what?
OF COURSE homosexuals feel like the church has condemned them - it has, and it must. Jesus confronted sin, and did so very harshly when the sinner was not repentant. If we cannot confront a world that loves sin and tolerates it and accepts it, then what use are we? The salt is no longer salty!
Yes, cockroaches will run from the light - as did many who rejected Jesus. See John 6. See what Jesus said to the Pharisees. See what John the Baptist said to Herod. Many will hate us if we hold true to God. And homosexuals are leading Satan’s charge against the church. They want all Christians silenced, intimidated, or cast out. Take a look at the recent San Antonio law requiring the city to fire anyone who has said something against homosexuality.
We - anyone who claims to follow Christ, Baptist or Catholic - need to stand against the ruler of this world and condemn sin. But your Pope has gone wobbly. He is seeking the praise and adulation of the mainstream press, and getting it. He is the John McCain of Popes, turning on his own to curry favor with the enemy.
Homosexuality and abortion are not minor matters. They are a terrible evil running rampant over the western world. God will judge us, and the Pope cannot stop God’s judgment by saying we cannot interfere with someone else’s spirituality.
Ask yourself this - why is it that almost daily you find yourself trying to explain why this Pope is getting great press from those who hate God? Whose side is he on? Is he too stupid to know he’s being used, or is he on their side?
I’ll be honest with you - this is the first Pope in my lifetime that I think may be demon-possessed. Francis is NOT on God’s side, and the adulation he is getting from evil-doers is evidence of it.
I like the characterization FR. Z’s site offered of the Real vs. Virtual Pope Francis and remarks thereof. The virtual one is the popular one, what the world comes away with. He says “We have to make sure that, with all the media attention, with all these interviews, that the ‘virtual Francis’ is not stronger than the real Francis.” The problem is that the pope’s communication style lends it self toward creating a virtual pope radically different from the real pope and the actual ideas in his mind.
Well, no analogy is perfect....
haha!
You might want to temper those more extreme comments a bit. I am guilty of that uncharitable manner of speech about the pope also and it is at my own peril.
Found this in the Fisheaters thread, an excerpt by "IVSTINIVS":
The internet has given everyone an opinion, and a platform to voice it. I look at what I say about the Holy Father publicly or out among people using Pascal's Wager as a template:If I criticize the Pope's actions and the Pope is wrong, then I gain nothing because it is not necessary to my state in life to do so, yet risk my soul with the use of uncharitable speech and, in the end, any good that comes from what I say is negligible anyway. There is likely a better way to inspire virtue.
If I criticize the Pope's actions and the Pope is right, then that in itself is a slippery slope to hell.
If I don't criticize the Pope's actions and the Pope is wrong, I lose nothing because it is not necessary to my state in life to do so.
If I don't criticize the Pope's actions and the Pope is right, then all fine with the world.
Your soul would appear to be safer if you respond to people's questions and concerns about the Pope, particular indivudal Bishops, and clergy, in the affirmative, rather than the negative
I’m actually not looking at the Pope’s statements with a predisposed to praise POV as I’m not a Catholic; but I do like what he is saying, and any deathists or other glorying in their shame type people jumping on the Pope bandwagon are likely doing so erroneously, thinking he’s saying something he’s not...
God’s unconditional love does not mean “do whatever you want, you’re fine as you are” and the Pope is not saying that. That’s clear to me. If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it.
Also, no fallen soul can experience His love if they want to remain as they are. If they’re comfortable in their dirt. There has to be some inkling of repentence, some part of the heart that wants God, that wants to change, that wants to be a new person, in order to have that opening where His love can enter in. Like a chink in the armor, a crack in the cave wall, a missing brick in the dungeon, where a bit of light shines in. Even a cry in the night - are You there???
It’s the beginning of the relationship.
I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says.The pope here says that he is merely repeating what the Catechism says, and what Jesus said about judging. Yes, we can judge homosexual acts as intrinsically evil. But we can't judge the eternal fate of individual sinners, regardless of their sins.
Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.
This is ambiguous. My guess is that it's a translation issue. My interpretation is this. The Church has the right to tell us right from wrong. But God has given us free will. We cannot force consciences.
Marvelous prose again, and no Christian could disagree, but the issue to me is: The pope is handing the other side a napalm flamethrower to use against the church. I do not believe it was his intention to do this, and you certainly can't find evidence of it in his writings per se, but that's the way it people take it (not just the MSM).
He was most assuredly NOT saying that homosexuality is wrong, but that we love the homosexual and hopes he will repent. At some point, you need to deal with what he said:
“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.
“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.”
If you see where he is saying homosexuality is sin that needs repentance, I’d like to know what phrase it is. Because what I see, and what the homosexuals are having orgasms over and what the media that hates Christ is doing back-flips over is his REFUSAL to say homosexuality is sinful.
He’s the ‘no judgment’ Pope, but if there is no judgement, then there was nothing for Jesus to save us from. He’s preaching the part of the Gospel people like - God loves you - while cutting out the part they dislike - that God hates sin, and will judge you if you do not repent.
“If I criticize the Pope’s actions and the Pope is wrong, then I gain nothing because it is not necessary to my state in life to do so...”
Sorry. God has called us to proclaim the Gospel, and that requires rejecting false teachers. AS Peter wrote:
“17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Does that sound like refusing to condemn? And as Paul wrote about Peter:
“11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
With that in mind,several pages after the remarks that you found disturbing he gets back on subject and the pope says:”We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion,gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This 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 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 of the time”.
I think he is telling his church that we need to be more Christlike if we are to draw people to Christ. He is giving us a tool to evangelize by acting more Christlike ourselves.I think it was St. Frances of Assisi that said “ago out and bring people to Christ,use words if you have to”. I for one needed to be reminded of that as I believe many others also need reminders every now and then.
In the exerpt you posted, the pope is speaking about God's mercy and the pastoral care of homosexuals. Some homosexuals are reprobate, and beyond hope. But some are broken sinners, seeking a way out of the darkness that surrounds them. In that sense, his words are reasonable.
Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.
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