Posted on 12/07/2013 8:55:18 AM PST by NKP_Vet
Pope Francis has laid out his plans for the Church in Evangelii Gaudium (EG). Rush Limbaugh read it and has concluded he’s a Marxist. Politically conservative evangelicals fear they’ve lost an ally in the Catholic Church. The pro-gay marriage lobby and Planned Parenthood are disillusioned after reading paragraphs 66 and 213, and rightly so. Pius X Society sympathizers are on edge after reading 108. “Left-leaning” Catholics who were hoping for a female priesthood are deflated after reading paragraph 104. Mainstream media labels him a progressive. Whose side is this man on anyway?
That he’s getting the entire world’s attention is undeniable. (I was recently interviewed on Al Jazeera TV about him. That’s a first for me!) But I think most of the world, from Rush to HuffPost to Al Jazeera, has absolutely no idea how to read him. That’s because most of the world is examining the 265th successor of Peter through the wrong lens.
The Church has never fit the hyper-politicized lens the Western World has come to see all things through. We’re “right of center” on abortion and gay marriage. We’re “left of center” on immigration and the need to care for the poor. Maybe that’s because our “center” is Jesus Christ.
(Excerpt) Read more at reallifecatholic.com ...
The black pope (Nostradamus) everyone has been watching for. He's here.
In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.
I don’t believe Rush explicitly stated that the Pope was a Marxist.
http://www.newsmax.com/BillDonohue/Pope-Francis-Church-Catholic/2013/11/27/id/538999
Pope Francis has an uncanny ability to excite the passions of the left and the right, and he has done so again in his apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.”
The Pope begins by outlining his principal interest, evangelization, calling on us to avoid being consumed by material pleasures that harm our interior life; when this happens, we shut out the voice of God.
He asks us to maintain good relations with Jews and Muslims, and beckons us not to judge Islam by the violence done in its name.
He hastens to add that the persecution of Christians in Islamic nations must end. He also reminds us that evangelization is “first and foremost about preaching the Gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him.” (His italics.)
The Pope is opposed to “excessive centralization,” and to that end he implores us not to view the parish as “an outdated institution.” He sees a vital role for the laity, who constitute “the vast majority of the people of God.”
The Holy Father asks us to give more attention to the special role that women play in the church, and in society. However, he also says that the church teaching on an all-male priesthood is “not a question open to discussion.” Motherhood, he insists, is a status conferred on women, one that allows them to exercise their special gift of serving others.
On economic issues, the Pope posits a clear animus toward unbridled capitalism, a view shared by his predecessors. But he is more pointed, rejecting “trickle-down” theories.
He is not rejecting a market-based economic model in favor of a socialist one — indeed he restates Catholic teaching on subsidiarity — but he is warning us against greed and the single-minded pursuit of profit.
“The private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them,” Pope Francis says, “so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason, solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to them.” This is welcome, but his focus on the structural causes of poverty, to the exclusion of the cultural causes, suggests an incomplete understanding of this issue. He is very much in the Latin American mode of thinking on this subject.
On abortion, Pope Francis flatly says that “the church cannot be expected to change her position on this question.”
Indeed, he says it is not “progressive” to resolve problems “by eliminating a human life.” Planned Parenthood has been doing this for decades.
The Holy Father’s comments on the family are telling. “Marriage tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will,” he says.
This is a clear shot at gay marriage, the proponents of whom have been quick to say that marriage is all about love. Nonsense, he says. The Pope cites French bishops that marriage is about “the depth of the obligation assumed by the spouses who accept to enter a total communion of life.”
Pope Francis warns of the dangers of “secularist rationalism,” and the radical individualism that it entails. He lays down a strong anchor by exhorting Catholics not to allow the forces of secularization to silence them; the church cannot reduce itself to “the sphere of the private and personal.”
He wants a public, and full-throated, exercise of religion. “Who would claim to lock up in a church and silence the message of Saint Francis or blessed Teresa of Calcutta?”
Catholic League members will like the Pope’s criticisms of our “media culture and some intellectual circles.”
These segments of the population would like activist Catholics to muzzle themselves, keeping their hands off the normative order. But when Catholics bend to these militant secularists, they lose. “They end up stifling the joy of mission with a kind of obsession about being like everyone else and possessing what everyone else possesses.”
Pope Francis is neither liberal nor conservative. He’s simply Catholic, and a towering champion of its many causes.
Rush was wrong — are you sure about that? Do a search for Rush and Francis in the title. LOL!
That introductory paragraph is a nutshell that we needed the first day! Wowsies!
But I still don’t believe that Rush explicitly stated that the Pope was a Marxist.
**Pope Francis is an evangelist, plain and simple. But he’s no ordinary evangelist. Though he’s taken his name after Francis of Assisi, our pope is clearly a missionary in the spirit of “the other St. Francis.” St. Francis Xavier was a 16th century Jesuit missionary who may have baptized more people than anyone in history. He was also a bit of a wild man. His desire to share the Gospel in its purest form probably drove the more mild manned, yet good people around him crazy!**
BTTT! I could see the evangelization from the very beginning — his reaching out to individuals, etc.
Amen!
**Pope Francis is steamrolling through all the barbed wire we’ve established between ourselves in the Church, disregarding all of our internal factions. The only “side” he is choosing is the Great Commission. He’s leading the charge into “no man’s land,” where the Gospel meets the rest of humanity, and he’s inviting the entire Church to follow him there. But follow or not, like the Jesuit Francis of the 16th century, he’s making it clear that he’s going there, even if he goes there alone. **
Outstanding article!
Rush being wrong is neither here nor there regarding my comment. He did not call the Pope a Marxist.
more blather and twaddle by folks trying to twist and distort what this pope actually said. Spin it any way you want he was very clear about his anti free market and anti capitalistic view point
Sorry, but everybody knows the Black Pope is Adolfo Nicolás Pachón, S.J.
It’s a good document overall. It’s just a shame some Vatican Marxist had to slip in some anti-Capitalist boilerplate. There’s no point denying they’re there.
He didn’t. I was listening that day and here’s the link.http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists
Pope Francis is the first Jesuit Pope. The first Jesuit Pope would naturally be the first fully “Black” (i.e. Jesuit) “Pope.” It is a circular logical statement that is just common sense.
In general, the use of the term "Black Pope" is often experienced as a derogatory nickname given to the Superior General, usually by the media and never utilized by the Jesuits themselves.
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