Posted on 11/26/2013 9:17:36 AM PST by IbJensen
In his first major work, Pope Francis urged the Catholic Church to commit itself to fighting poverty and called on world leaders to become more concerned about the current state of society. He opened the door to reforms of Vatican bureaucracy while reaffirming that female priests and the church’s opposition to abortion is 'not open to discussion.'
(In his first major work, Pope Francis called on an end to society’s obsession with money. He also said he was open to reforms that would move power away from the Vatican.)
Pope Francis decried the unfettered capitalism that has created “a new tyranny” and an “idolatry of money” Tuesday in his first major work as pontiff.
"Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,” Francis wrote in his apostolic exhortation, which amounts to a platform for his papacy.
"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"
Francis, 76, called on leaders the world over to guarantee people "dignified work, education and health care” in the exhortation called "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).
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The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics also called on the entrenched, antiquated Vatican bureaucracy to focus its energies on spreading the gospel. The reign of Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict, was marred by scandal and infighting at the Holy See.
"I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security," the Argentine wrote in the plain language that has characterized his papacy. He also said he was open to the possibility of moving power away from the Vatican.
But Francis was at his most passionate when writing about poverty, the issue that has dominated his papacy since he was elected in March.
"As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems," he wrote.
RELATED: POPE FRANCIS EMBRACES MAN WITH DISFIGURED FACE
He added that his call did not amount to a populist cry of outrage.
This goes "beyond a simple welfare mentality," he said.
"I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor."
Despite the significant shift in tone, Francis did not go so far as to open the door to abortion or female priests.
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The male-only priesthood, he said, "is not a question open to discussion," but women must have more influence in church leadership, he wrote.
The message of the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years reflects the influence of Liberation Theology, a controversial political movement with roots in Latin America that tied the teachings of Jesus Christ to radical opposition of the social and economic conditions that create poverty.
Francis’ apostolic exhortation is the first major work he has authored alone. In July Francis completed an encyclical begun by Benedict, though he made clear it more reflected the voice of his predecessor.
What was your problem with John Paul II?
I love this pope.
You are spewing falsehoods and you are aware of it, just like a womyn priest, no different. You just think you’re different, and special, as does she.
Vatican 2 was meant to pull the entrenched in ritual away from those entrenched in worshiping God first and foremost, to show the difference. That’s why you hate this man.
Popes are poor. That gold and silver belongs to God for the majesty of pilgrims to inspire their awe. The money in your pocket is the money God put there and THAT is the money for the poor. Yes, spread God’s money around, money He blessed you with by giving you a chance at life, a brain, and a back, as well as a job, to do God’s work, not Obama’s or any man’s, for God’s greater glory.
Happy Thanksgiving - Thanks and giving. Keep your money if it’s yours.
We're so America-centric when it comes to papal and Vatican announcements. Sometimes it isn't all about us and just us.
Is not Pope worship a form of idolatry?
I love the Pope - but once again- our shepherds need to consider the possibility that their understanding of economics is not any better/worse than the next guy.
Concern for the elderly dying ofexposure?
Who is responsible to check in on these poor people? Who will help them? And in what economic conditions is this sort of thing least likely to occur?
What falsehoods?
He, like those before him, had an opportunity to reverse the evil that flowed subsequent to Vatican II. He did nothing.
For over 1,500 years tenets, rubrics and liturgy remained the same and was (I stated elsewhere here) codified by Pope Pius V. That codification was reaffirmed by Pope Saint Pius X.
How then could Vatican II be allowed to create what amounts to a new religion without a contemporary pope stepping in and putting an end to the modernism?
Those that approve of the changes for the sake of ‘bringing the Church into the 21st century’ is nothing short of heretical.
What say you?
Chill! The Pope doesn’t set economic policies or tax rates.
Does he have anything to do with preaching and teaching the Gospel, or does he have any interest in saving souls as well as the Roman Catholic Church?
He has an agenda and it’s un-Godly.
You mean opposing abortion and gay marriage?
And what of Rerum Novarum?
Shocking isn't it.
I guess "You shall not steal" doesn't apply if you're the pope of social "justice".
During the 19th Century, various Popes issued encyclicals condemning both Marxism and Liberalism. Rerum Novarum represented a social teaching that pretty much defended free-market capitalism. No, not completely, but as compared to the prior teachings. But, in hindsight, it can be viewed as a deviation from the path, as the follow-up encyclicals returned to the middle way argument, a middle way that at times was quite to the left. Ditto Centisimus Annus. It’s defense of free-market capitalism, now in hindsight, also looks like a deviation. I do like the way Cardinal Dolan, about a month ago, reconciled the differences among John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, by saying all three represent valid perspectives or emphasis within the overall Catholic tradition. But, the hint made by Cardinal Dolan seems to have fallen on deaf ears. This apostolic exhortation is quite one-sided.
Getting back to Rerum Novarum, it defended private property, as Catholic have done so Aquinas. But, the arguments of Aquinas on behalf of property reflect a world of scarcity. Property, wealth and inequality were justified by Aquinas as capital was so scarce that if it were evenly distributed, it would be spent by the masses of poor, and lead rather quickly to the impoverishment of mankind. But, thanks to the free market (which thanks are not stated explicitly in Rerum Novarum), standards of livings had increased, so that most working people in free-market countries enjoyed a margin above subsistence. Due to this progress, capitalists had a moral obligation, which could be made into a legal obligation, to provide work appropriate to the circumstances of workers and wages above the mere subsistence level.
I return to the left-handed acknowledgement of the productivity of free-market capitalism. What kind of theology is it that supposes that there is such a thing as a necessary evil? If free-market capitalism is good, it is not evil, and if it is evil, it if not good. If free-market capitalism is not good, the Church should condemn its fruits, and extoll ecstatic poverty as it used to and reject the abundance free-market capitalism provides to most workers. Karl Marx, on the other hand, is free to say that free-market capitalism is a necessary evil, being as he is an atheist. Thank God or whatever for the abundance provided by free-market capitalism. Now, let us kill the goose that lays the golden age and share the wealth it has created more evenly.
Rerum Novarum describes rights and duties for labor and capital. This apostolic exhortation describes no duties for “the excluded,” and no rights for those who work. Yet, we are commanded to work (six days you shall work and do all your labor, and on the seventh day you shall rest). For this Pope to not exhort the excluded to work, and instead say that they might simply wait, and are justified in their mere waiting, is an insult to whose who work.
It clearly was not.
Many additions and modifications were made to the liturgy during the preceding centuries and there were literally more than one hundred local variations of the liturgy at the time of the Council of Trent.
What St. Pius and the Council did was unprecedented and radical - and also extremely beneficial for the Church.
The Missal of St. Pius V itself changed over the years, leading to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII which I use every Sunday.
One of the central innovations of St. Pius V, for example, was universalizing the local Roman custom of elevating the Blessed Sacrament at the Consecration over the celebrant's head.
While the 1970 Missal of Ven. Paul VI has been routinely abused, it is almost never actually used according to its original text and rubrics. That is now being partially remedied, just as it took decades for the 1570 Missal to be properly adopted.
Social Justice: “We’re telling you to do what we say Jesus said and having the government make sure you do it.”
And what of these?
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-rock-star-pope-isnt-saying-anything.html
Whatever the Catholic Church once was, it is hard now to see it as anything but a collection of pedophiles and socialists.
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