Well be careful, ya'll. Parse them words, hone them explanations, thread those hermeneutic needles and don't screw up - or you might just end up in...
...The Protestant Zone.
Pope: Kids Crossing US Border Illegally Should Be ‘Welcomed’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3180661/posts
I sat down with a good holy priest last night, a priest in good standing and in full communion with Rome, and the subject of our Pope came up. He just rolled his eyes. I asked him what the priests who he knows and respects think of this Pope. He said they all just try to ignore him now. Yeah, its that bad.
In the ‘80’s, Communism fell reportedly the result of a triumvirate of: an activist Pope, a strong U.S. President and a strong UK leader. Now we have: a socialist Pope, a weak/evil U.S. President, and a weak UK leader.
Is the West screwed? It’s all up to the people now.
Well gee whizz, he’s very blase about everything this author. I’d like to hear his 10 things to remember if Barack Obama upsets you.
I’ll tell you what bothers me most about this pope, I don’t understand why he was chosen.
He seems to be quite flaky. It is very surprising that a person can raise to the heights of one of the most prominent positions on earth but constantly can’t make himself understood and/or is unwilling to be forthright about what he thinks.
Yeah, I admit JPII and Benedict were extraordinary men, I understand not every pope might be of their caliber.
But, I just don’t get this Francis. He just seems to be confused and confusing. That might have been OK for a few decades back in the year 1100, it’s not a good time in the world for it in our leaders, but now that I put it that way, he fits right in with the rest of the global elites.
Well be careful, ya'll. Parse them words, hone them explanations, thread those hermeneutic needles and don't screw up - or you might just end up in...
...The Protestant Zone.
-- Pope Francis to the UN
Maybe I should remember this when a pope (who I have no allegiance to) tries to tell me that MY TAX DOLLARS should go to support law breakers for practically their whole young lives through continued welfare payments and government handouts..?
I would like to see everbody who is worried about this Pope commit to praying for him. (That would include me). It is absolutely essential that this man gets some prayer cover, for the good of his own soul, and the good of the Church.
I love Pope Francis and he’s not once caused me to question his intents.
What has come to light, during his papacy, is just how many so-called Catholics are really protestants.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. I mean, what do we expect? We have murdered 60 million unborn children in America alone. Now we have churches, that claim to be Christian, marrying homosexuals, including the NATIONAL CATHEDRAL. A great percentage of Americans believe these things are God-given rights. Much of America is pagan and the Christians approve of abortion and sodomy, two of the sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
Prepare yourselves for war, pestilence, persecution and famine. Oh, and have a nice day.
Some have given up on Pope Francis. Others say he is “the false prophet” who will accompany the anti Christ in the end times. Others don’t like his dress sense, grumble about his media gaffes and some think they are all intentional and that he is a very shrewd Jesuit who wants to undermine the Catholic faith. The sensationalism doesn’t do any good. These folks should step back and realize they are (in their own way) being just as sensational about Pope Francis as liberals were about Pope Benedict when they called him “God’s Rottweiler” or “Nazi Ratzi” and said he was a closet homosexual and a hater of women.
So if Pope Francis upsets you–and by the way–I’ve had my own moments of head scratching over Francis–here are ten things to remember which help put things in perspective and maintain some balance.
He could have just summarized it by saying "shut up and kiss the ring."
Don’t pay any attention to the words that are officially posted on the Vatican website? The words that clearly state that Francis believes “proselytism is downright nonsense” and that “each one of us has his own vision of the Good and also of Evil. We have to urge it [the vision] to move towards what one perceives as the Good” among other gems?
Yes, let’s just ignore that.
I find it interesting that a Pope actually acts more like Jesus Christ than any previous Pope I remember and Catholics are upset.
I like this Pope, he is not suppose be a politically correct leader, either left or right, he is suppose to hear God and have a heart like God, I find him quite remarkable and courageous.
My purpose here is to outline a new and unsettling situation which is leading me to adopt a more critical (yet more loyal and faithful) stance with respect to certain teaching controversies in the Catholic Church.
People are fallible. Popes, too. What we owe to anyone --- popes, too --- is a presumption of intelligence and good will; a certain tolerance for personal foibles; and (if we have any love in our hearts at all) an honest go at “admonishing the sinner” if his feet turn down a deadly path: most especially if a wandering bellwether can lead others over a cliff.
Now, at the beginning of the fourth year of Pope Francis’ pontificate, please note that there have been almost weekly eruptions of concern over feather-ruffling papal statements, both official and unofficial. Some of these arise from so-called “gaffes” (verbal foot-faults), plus media ambushes and overreaches. Some have been bug-tussles over matters of style rather than substance, which flare up and then die over the course of a news-cycle or two. These can mostly be safely ignored.
Others have been more substantive, often involving Pope Francis’ public policy advocacy. However, this category does not bear directly on Sacred Doctrine per se (for example, neither the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium nor the particular charism of Infallibility extends to geophysical science and papal diplomacy) and thus is --- compared to direct doctrinal issues --- of lesser concern.
Now to the point: every once in a while, in the midst of volumes of daily pastoral and en-route jet plane musings, Pope Francis will say something that’s disturbingly chancy on the doctrinal side.
My own interpretive practice has been to follow the counsel given us by Pope Benedict XVI: I apply a Hermeneutic of Continuity. That is, whatever seems baffling or ambiguous is to be explained in a sense consistent with what previous Pontiffs, Councils, and Catechisms have taught.
Of course, there are limits. Viewing the world through continuity-colored glasses is only valid if you can do this in an honest way, without pretzelling the meaning of words and phrases, without mental reservation and chicanery. In other words, the plausibly Catholic understanding I claim I have uncovered in a perplexing papal statement has to be actually found in a fair reading of the Pope’s own words.
That’s been possible until just recently. However, current developments have made it hard to objectively reconcile papal speech and Catholic doctrine. I want to briefly discuss the triggering event which led me to this conclusion, and then put it into a larger context about Pope Francis’ overall teaching (both style and content), and my own response as a faithful Catholic.
The triggering event for me was the pope’s February 17 in-flight response to a reporter’s question about the use of contraceptives in relation to a Zika outbreak in our hemisphere. (Zika is a viral disease which, when it infects pregnant women, may cause serious defects in their unborn infants.)
Here is the key papal quote from the above article. Pope Francis said,
Let’s look at that answer more closely.
(1) “On the ‘lesser evil,’ avoiding pregnancy, “we are speaking in terms of the conflict between the Fifth and Sixth Commandment.” (2)“Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape.” [The nuns were in danger of getting raped and therefore at risk of pregnancy.]
(3) “On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear.” [Numbers added by me for clarity]
(1) Avoiding pregnancy per se is not a moral evil at all! It is morally neutral: it all depends on the “why” and the “how”. It can even be, in some instances, indisputably morally virtuous. Couching an argument in terms of a “choice of evils” is not Catholic: it is more nearly consequentialist, which is a form of argument not countenanced in Catholic moral discourse. As St. Paul taught:
“Why not say--as some slanderously claim that we say—‘Let us do evil that good may result’? They deserve to be condemned!” Romans 3:8
It is the constant teaching of the Church that evil may not be done, not even to avoid grave harms. Sin is never the lesser of two evils. Postponement or even total prevention of pregnancy, for sufficient reasons and using licit means, is not a “choice of evils” or a “conflict between the 5th and the 6th Commandments.” The Commandments do not conflict.
(2) “Difficult situation in Africa.”Pope Francis states as a fact that Pope Paul VI permitted nuns in the Belgian Congo, in danger of rape, to use contraceptives, later specified as anovulant. (These prevent fertilization of an ovum by entirely suppressing ovulation.) This Congo scenario is rather dubious. Look at the time line.
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- • July 18, 1960 Rapes involving nuns in the Belgian Congo became public
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1960/07/18/page/2/article/victims-tell-night-of-terror-in-congo-city
- • June 21, 1963 Pope Paul VI’s pontificate began.
- • March, 1965 The anovulant contraceptive Pill first became available in Belgium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nand_Peeters
- • July 25, 1968 Pope Paul VI publishes his encyclical Humanae Vitae reiterating the Catholic Church’s constant moral teaching against contraception. There’s not even a footnote on the anticipation-of-rape situation, which was, if considered at all, was not considered relevant to the teaching that the choice of intentionally contracepted sexual intercourse is prohibited as an exceptionless norm.
Consequently, it is highly questionable that birth control pills not available until 1965 could have been OK’d by Pope Paul VI for a war-fueled rape crisis in 1960 when the pontiff at the time (1958-63) was in fact Pope John XXIII.
Even if Pope Paul VI had in fact approved an anovulant contraceptive in a rape context, it would not be relevant to the Zika crisis, as I will show.
(3) ”In certain cases… Blessed Paul VI… it is clear” ? What is clear? That because of the Belgian Congo crisis in 1960, choosing contracepted sex is sometimes OK? No; rather, what is clear is that all this is NOT AT ALL related to the Zika situation.
First, there’s no doubt that an anovulant can be justified as self protection in the singular, exceptional case of sexual assault. Catholic Hospital ERs, in conformity with the explicit USCCB Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services, permit the administration of an anovulant drug as part of emergency care in the aftermath of a rape, once it had been determined that the woman had not already ovulated and therefore there would be no possibility of disrupting an already-conceived embryo. (That is, once the possibility of triggering an early abortion has been eliminated.) http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/Ethical-Religious-Directives-Catholic-Health-Care-Services-fifth-edition-2009.pdf (Part 3, #36, p. 21)
That is, a sexual assault victim may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization.
Likewise, it is lawful to prevent the invasion of one’s body by an aggressor, including the aggressor’s sperm cells. Of course one must resist and refuse the assault! But if a sexual attack occurs, a barrier method (e.g. a diaphragm) could arguably be just as legitimate as body armor or a bullet-proof vest in the case of assault.
It should be noted, though, that this is a theoretical, not a practical consideration. Barrier-type contraceptive devices (e.g. the diaphragm) can’t be worn long-term; and short-term ones (e.g. condoms) would require the cooperation of the rapist, which is hardly to be expected. So this is a “parenthetical” “hypothetical” discussion of decidedly limited value.
More importantly, it is not related to the Zika situation at all.
A rape victim literally cannot choose a disordered sexual act (contraception) while being raped, because she is not choosing a sexual act at all. So, she has not committed this sin: she is the victim of it: she is only trying to limit its effects.
Zika does not involve rape: therefore self-defense measures justified by rape are not justified in this situation.
Christ teaches us through His Church --- in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae --- that acts to intentionally render conjugal (husband-wife) intercourse infertile, are always prohibited as intrinsically evil. This teaching is constant, is rooted as far back as the Book of Genesis, and has with ever-increasing precision been affirmed by Popes Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and every one of Pope Paul VI’s successors to the present day. As it is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil" (CCC 2370). "Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means . . . for example, direct sterilization or contraception" (CCC 2399).
Note that this refers to conjugal (married, husband-wife) intercourse, not to criminal (rape) intercourse. Contraception is prohibited in marriage; intercourse outside of marriage is, of course, itself prohibited.
For married couples to use contraceptives (a “morally unacceptable means”) to prevent pregnancy is not justified by the desire to avoid conceiving a child with a disability, or for any other reason.
Nevertheless, it is still lawful for married couples to avoid pregnancy under such circumstances, by moral means. Among those moral means would be avoidance of all intercourse for the duration of the Zika exposure, OR periodic abstinence during the fertile days of each monthly cycle.
This is not contraception.
This is something Pope Francis has yet not been ready or able to clarify in the aftermath of his February 17 interview.
Regardless of the parsing we may do with a magnifying glass and tweezers, the whole global public now understands this to be a papal statement of approval of marital contraception whenever a couple has “good enough” reasons. For example:
Pope suggests contraceptives OK to slow Zika - CNN.comPope Francis suggests contraception could be permissible ... --Washington Post –
Pope Francis Condones Contraception With Zika Virus ... NPR
(Quote) “Pope Francis has already said that the use of contraceptives is permissible ..” ChristianToday
In Zika outbreak, contraceptives may be 'lesser evil,' pope says Catholic News Service
Pope Francis suggests tolerance for contraception in Zika ... CBS News
Pope suggests contraception can be condoned in Zika crisis…Associated Press
Pope's remarks on contraception and Zika virus cause controversy, confusion... Life Site News
Pope suggests contraception can be condoned in Zika crisis USA Today
The real surprise in Pope Francis' Zika virus remarks ... Religion News Service
POPE NOW SAYS BIRTH CONTROL OK... February 18, 2016 edition of the Drudge Report: statistically, the most influential news aggregator on earth.
But is this actually what Pope Francis said, or meant? His official Press Office says ---Yes! In Zika outbreak, contraceptives may be 'lesser evil,' pope says - Catholic News Service
Pope Francis’ official press spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, speaking to Vatican Radio about the pope's remarks, said that
Which means… what? No further guidance forthcoming from the Holy Father?
An even more dire consequence is that some Bishops’ Conferences have decided to pick this up and run with it:
http://tinyurl.com/Philippines-bishops-tag In wake of Pope's remarks, Filipino bishops call for a 're-evaluation of contraceptionSo here we have it, a papal teaching innovation in stark contradiction to the binding, Magisterial teaching of Humanae Vitae and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as every one of Pope Francis’ venerable predecessors.
But… what if it isn’t “all that”? After all, doctrines are not made and unmade on the basis of unofficial in-flight news-chat, and Pope Francis could well come out tomorrow with yet another hand-waving retraction / clarification saying, “Wait, no, that’s not what I meant at all…”
That leads to me next point: it seems to be precisely this pope’s style to make directly contradictory statements, confuse everyone, create doubt, and then say, “Well, in the case of doubt, let your conscience by your guide.”
I realize this is a serious charge, but the National Catholic Register’s Vatican reporter, Edward Pentin, has noticed the same thing:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/affirm-doctrine-find-exceptions-appeal-to-conscience/Pentin notes that Pope Francis has “a pattern of floating controversial pastoral innovations, which critics say conflict with Church teaching, by firmly underscoring an element of doctrine and then presenting exceptional cases that underline the primacy of conscience.”
The problem here is that conscience itself --- understood simply as the individual capacity to think and learn, and finally make judgments about moral good and evil --- has no ability to invent or generate moral doctrine. As Pope Pius XII said, “Conscience is a student, not a teacher.”
Conscience has duties long before it has rights. And the first duty of conscience is this:
(Romans 12:2) “Be not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”And again:
(Philippians 2:5) “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”Christ Jesus teaches us through His Church. I needn’t go through the whole Catechism and the history of doctrine, to show that we are to learn from the Church, going back to Blessed Peter and the Apostles; and that nobody, not even the Pope, has the authority to innovate in such a way as to flatly contradict the teachings of all of his venerable predecessors.
"In the formation of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to attend to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church." So reads the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Religious Freedom.
So the Catholic must first learn, accept, and strive to understand the objective Moral Law --- the sacred and certain doctrines Christ Jesus gives us through the Church --- and then apply that as honestly as he or she can: this is the exercise of a Catholic Conscience.
I repeat: the individual conscience does not generate Moral Law.
Unfortunately, Pope Francis often manages to convey that it does. In one example cited by Pentin, Pope Francis told a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic that intercommunion “is a problem to which each person must respond” and that she should “speak with the Lord and go forward.”
In another example, Pope Francis stressed that the divorced/remarried could rely on the “internal forum” —the formation of conscience with a priest — to come to a “correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of Church.”
Pope Francis’ own appointed doctrine advisor, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, has more than a few times had to scramble to cover for the Pope’s erroneous off-the-cuff statements. The German newspaper, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger asked Müller whether he must sometimes dogmatically correct what the pope says in his charismatic enthusiasm. Cardinal Müller answered: “That is what he [Pope Francis] has said already three or four times himself, publicly (laughs); and then he gave me a hug so that – as he said – the gossip ceases with regard to this matter.” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vaticans-doctrine-chief-pope-is-not-a-professional-theologian
Cardinal Raymond Burke remarked, with admirable restraint, that this “lacked clarity.” Cardinal Walter Kasper bluntly proclaimed that this “opened the door” to Communion for the divorced and remarried.
So, looking at the big picture, the emerging problem with the Ecclesia Docens --- the Teaching Church --- is not just some disputed point about contraception and a few similar “single issues”, terrifically important though they are. It’s everything.
What’s in question now is our willingness to teach the objective Moral Law. Or not.
The over-all impression is that everything is up for grabs. This puts me, as the smallest of small-time assistants of the Teaching Church, in an uncomfortable condition. Our parishioners have always been able to read garbled Catholic news in USA Today or the Washington Post. Our Candidates and Catechumens have always been able to see scandalous ecclesial swill on CNN. The problem at hand is that in order to defend Catholic doctrine, it’s not enough anymore to refute CNN. It’s now necessary to refute the Pope.
Pope Benedict XVI: "The Pope is not an oracle;
he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know."
Pope John XXIII: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly
but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible."
I know that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail. No pope will ever be able to put forward errors pertaining to faith and morals, in such a way as to lead the whole Church, under the obedience of faith, into formal error.
Pope Francis will not do this; I am ever more convinced that he will not even try. Because that’s not his rhetorical style. He will not put forth fully coherent, propositional error because he so rarely chooses to communicate in a fully coherent, propositional way.
It hasn’t been, and won’t be, formal heresy leading to formal reversals of doctrine. Equivocations, ellipses and ambiguities are quite enough to confuse the faithful, make pastors back off from confident, solid teaching, and in the end leave people to their own devices.
“In those days, Israel had no king; and each man did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6, 21:25).And as for me?I’m not sure what I can do at this point.
I am aware that there are several different ways I could fail.
One would be by ignoring all these papal misstatements, hoping that nobody else noticed, and hoping that if I keep my head down, the storm will eventually pass: yes, the whole thing will blow away. Nonsense.
Another “fail” would be to continue following the Jumbo Parade with my lemon-fresh spritzer, saying the stink is caused by the Evil Media and the Pope was misinterpreted again --- which is always true, as far as it goes, so it’s safe! But now doesn’t go far enough: now that, for instance, the break on contraception has been confirmed by the Pope’s own official spokesman (Fr. Lombardi), and has not been corrected from The Top.
Still another way to mishandle this would be to scandalize the simpler lambs who never read or hear the news and thus have never heard of these accumulating papal errors and confusions. I suppose there are many Catholics who read only sports and politics, not theology! But --- on the other hand --- USA Today is not the only news outlet that covers the Pope on their Politics page; and many parishioners do regularly follow the mainstream Catholic media ---- EWTN, the National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, etc. ---- and are already well and truly scandalized.
Still another failure would be by imposing extreme interpretations which are not supported by the facts, like e.g. the newest wave of sedevacantists who claim that the Pope is now deprived of his office by reason of formal heresy.
“God is not the author of confusion.” (2 Cor. 14:33) The public perception of it is now global, and significant numbers even of our own parishioners are noticing.
Here’s what I, on my part, am afraid of: Thinking one thing and always saying another. This is duplicity, lack of moral diligence, abandonment of that tiny scrap of pastoral responsibility which is mine, perched here on the lowest rung of the Teaching Church. So, as I see it, I can’t go on editing the and teaching RCIA in the same manner that I have in the past, as if everything is still OK. As if I am not seeing God’s holy laws being pulled up by the roots before my eyes. As if it were allowable to omit key elements of reality from what I allow myself to speak and write.
“A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:8) This – duplicity--- is a real conscience problem for me.
I think I could stay on with The Disciple and RCIA if I knew I could address these realities directly. It would mean that when these conflicts present themselves, I can --- not focus on--- but honestly acknowledge that divergences can appear between Catholic Doctrine and Catholic “theological opinion,” even at the highest levels, and that in such cases --- assuming the errors are not published and promulgated as doctrine in official documents --- it is the Doctrine which must always be defended and lived.
The idea that I am ceasing to be honest, gives me, frankly, a trace of horror: horror at streaks of E. coli in good and honest fare. Horror of something which can throw the body into toxic shock and multiple organ failure.
Horror, if I can put it this way, at the loss of the Law of Gravity in the edifice of Catholic Truth. Not that Gravity could fail: but why are the pillars swaying? I look down to the ground: a wave rolls the surface of the solid rock, then outward toward the horizon. Upon this Rock: a tectonic shift? How much will break loose? Continents?
This perception of extreme peril urges me to devote myself full-time to fighting the larger dangers of the day. God help me, but here I am. I was born --- weren’t we all? ----- “for such a time as this.”
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