A Latino pope : a problem for USA?

[phil19034]

“Hispanic” refers to the culture of Spanish-speaking peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

And not really even the “culture” as each of them are different due to the different indigenous influence they each have.

The term “Hispanic” is really more akin to “Anglophone” or “Francophone.”

But in reality, the word comes from the Latin word Hispanicus, which is the Latin word for Spanish.

Because “Spanish” and “Spaniard” really is for Spain, “Hispanic” was used for all of the Spanish speaking world, including Spanish speaking people in the Philippines & spanish speaking parts of Africa.

 

[Gyro]

John Paul II and Benedict XVI also spoke of the poor and of mercy …

M.F.: Certainly, but it’s totally different because whoever speaks of the poor comes himself from the Church of the poor in Latin America.

So, are the poor of Latin America different in some significant way over the poor people of Poland or post-war Germany?

The Polish nation lost the largest portion of its pre-war population during World War II. Out of Poland’s pre-war population of 34,849,000, about 6,000,000 - constituting 17% of its total - perished during the German occupation. There were 240,000 military deaths, 3,000,000 Polish-Jewish Holocaust victims, and 2,760,000 civilian deaths. But it gets worse. There were almost three million civilian (non-concentration camp) deaths. No matter where you come from in this world, that’s an impoverished people! Their lives weren’t worth a dime. Life was cheap. When we look at the Soviet Occupation that followed, we find a people who continued to suffer mightily. The Soviet occupied territories of Poland, with total population of 13 million, was subjected to an almost unlimited reign of terror. According to research published in 2009 by the Institute of National Remembrance about 1 million Polish citizens were arrested, conscripted or deported by the Soviet occupiers from 1939 to 1941; including about 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned by the Soviets as “enemies of the people”; 475,000 Poles who were considered “enemies of the people” were deported to remote regions of the USSR; 76,000 Polish citizens were conscripted into the Soviet Armed forces and 200,000 were conscripted as forced laborers in the interior of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet forces returned to Poland in 1944-1945 there was a new wave of repression of Polish citizens including 188,000 deported, 50,000 conscripted as forced labor and 50,000 arrested. That’s the world that Saint Pope John Paul II knew about in his bones!

Germany held its horrors for its own people as well. Between 1944 and 1948, millions of people, including ethnic and German citizens were moved from Central and Eastern Europe. By 1950, a total of approximately 12 million Germans had fled or were expelled from east-central Europe. The West German government put the total at 14.6 million. That’s 14+ million refugees on the road. Historian Anthony Beevor suggests that some 800,000 German women in Pomerania and Prussia were raped by the advancing Red Army in 1945. That’s just short of 1 million - and some historians place the number at 2 million. That’s the world of Benedict XVI.

My heart breaks for the poor people of Latin America - it truly does - but it’s just plain ignorant to suggest, by comparison with Poland and Germany, that the Church of Latin America is the Church of the Poor.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

“The United Kingdom of” is an adjective for Great Britain.

Totally wrong! The United Kingdom and Great Britain are not the same.

I never claimed they were.

The analogy I was trying to make is:

saying the people of the United States of America can’t call themselves “American” and must call themselves “Statesmen” would be akin to saying that people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can’t call themselves British and must call themselves “Kingsmen”

If someone in Dublin started telling someone who lives in the United Kingdom that they can’t call themselves British and must call themselves “Kingsmen” - it would be 100% ridiculous.

Just because island Ireland is part of the British Isles doesn’t mean people from the United Kingdom shouldn’t be allowed to call themselves British.

That was the point I was trying to make.

 

[esieffe]

I do not know a single person, even among the rad-trads and anti-Francis’, that believes he’s heretical for calling for aid to the poor and mercy for everyone. This is a non-issue. Whoever wrote this is making stuff up, and has no clue what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, I think everyone was excited that there was someone from Latin America vs. Italy or the rest of Europe. For many people South America = Catholic.

 

[phil19034]

ProdglArchitect:

I do not know a single person, even among the rad-trads and anti-Francis’, that believes he’s heretical for calling for aid to the poor and mercy for everyone. This is a non-issue. Whoever wrote this is making stuff up, and has no clue what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, I think everyone was excited that there was someone from Latin America vs. Italy or the rest of Europe. For many people South America = Catholic.

Yes! Most Americans (esp American Catholics) were thrilled that someone from the Western Hemisphere was elected Pope. Though, I do think many were hoping for an African

The idea that Americans were unhappy that someone from Latin America (in of itself) was elected is insane, wrong, and totally fails to understand America & American Catholics.

The issues that some Americans have with Pope Francis have nothing to do with Latin American. The issues they have (whether real or perceived) are with him as a leader, the Europeans he surrounds himself with at the Vatican, & the things he says on his own, etc.

It’s really not even the fact that he’s from Argentina (in of itself). It’s really just him and/or what the leftist media says about him.

BTW - when Nancy Pelosi said a few years ago, “finally we have a Pope who is like the [liberal] nuns [at Trinity College when she attended school there],” you know that American conservatives are going to be naturally skeptical.

The US media didn’t like Pope John Paul II, but where usually fair to him. But they roasted Pope Benedict XVI everyday and then love Pope Francis as if he is single handedly the savior of the Catholic Church.

NOTE: none of this is an expression of my personal feelings… just the way American conservatives (eps the Protestant ones) see His Holiness & the news surrounding him.

God Bless

 

[HomeschoolDad]

1. People from Argentina have a major issue with Americans because we call ourselves Americans. Their view is that we do not have the right to call ourselves American and that we need to change our name. This is because they believe there is only one continent in the Western Hemisphere called America, not two continents called North America & South America (note; Central America is actually part of North America)

Their view is that the north, central and south are simply geographic markers, teh same as Eastern Europe, Western Europe, etc.

They think the term “American” is equal to “European.” We Americans disagree. We view the equivalent to “European” are “North American” and “South American,” while an American is someone from America (aka the United States of America).

I’ve met Argentinians who have told me to my face that we should call ourselves “Statesmen” instead of American!

I’ve heard this before. Is this just an Argentinian thing, or common to other Latin Americans? Spanish actually has a very elegant word, “estadounidense”, but it translates into English as “United Statesian”, which sounds very awkward.

Argentina is not a poor, Latin American country. It’s actually very European. Pope Francis isn’t coming from a nation like Columbia or El Salvador.

My point exactly.

Jesuit order is well implanted in USA, it seems, they run a lot of colleges, have a magazine etc
Well for the Jesuit, sure there is anti jesuitism, but if we look what they do in their university, what some of their members said openly etc, it is not surprising at all.

There is no particular disliking of Jesuits in the United States. Your average Catholic in the pew would have only a hazy understanding of what a Jesuit even is. Americans don’t think about that kind of thing.

The term “Hispanic” is really more akin to “Anglophone” or “Francophone.”

This is a very accurate assessment. The only difference is that, aside from Spain itself, the Spanish-speaking countries are all in one contiguous geographical area, a long narrow strip from Mexico south to Chile and Argentina, with various island countries in the Caribbean.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

ProdglArchitect:

I do not know a single person, even among the rad-trads and anti-Francis’, that believes he’s heretical for calling for aid to the poor and mercy for everyone. This is a non-issue. Whoever wrote this is making stuff up, and has no clue what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, I think everyone was excited that there was someone from Latin America vs. Italy or the rest of Europe. For many people South America = Catholic.

I wish it were.

South America is hemorrhaging Catholics to Protestant evangelical and fundamentalist sects. It is horrible.

It’s really not even the fact that he’s from Argentina (in of itself). It’s really just him and/or what the leftist media says about him.

The typical American couldn’t tell you the first thing about Argentina — what life is like there, what ethnicities the people are, and many would even be shaky about what language is spoken there, or where to find it on a map. It’s not just Argentina. Americans generally do not know or care about any country other than the United States, and they have only a hazy concept of even US geography outside their own immediate area and the places they go on vacation during the summer. They think that “everybody else in the world is trying to get to the United States because here they’ll be ‘free’ and they’ll have all the ‘luxuries’ we have that the rest of the world doesn’t have”.

There is an educated portion of the American population that does know these things, and thank God for them!

 

[StudentMI]

I know Argentinians love meat with every meal. I saw that on a travelling cooking show.

Plus one of my favorite authors, Jorge Luis Borges, was from Argentina.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I know Argentinians love meat with every meal. I saw that on a travelling cooking show.

They do a very nice job with cooking meat. I have a favorite Argentinian/Uruguayan steakhouse, looks like a dive from the street, but they fix a mean strip steak. They bring it to the table with onions sizzling underneath it on the plate. Nice touch.

 

[phil19034]

This is a very accurate assessment. The only difference is that, aside from Spain itself, the Spanish-speaking countries are all in one contiguous geographical area, a long narrow strip from Mexico south to Chile and Argentina, with various island countries in the Caribbean.

Well, the people who live in small spanish speaking parts of Africa and the spanish speaking parts of the Philippines are technically considered “hispanic” too.

 

[phil19034]

I’ve heard this before. Is this just an Argentinian thing, or common to other Latin Americans? Spanish actually has a very elegant word, “estadounidense”, but it translates into English as “United Statesian”, which sounds very awkward.

It is very common throughout Latin America.

The reason is during the 1500 & 1600s, Spanish and English disagreed regarding the number of continents discovered in the Western Hemisphere.

The English said there were two separate continents, the Spanish said there was only one.

Later, because of the conflict between the two nations, Catholic countries (including the Pope) backed the idea that there was only one continent, while Protestant nations back the English idea that there were two.

The idea that there is two continents in the Western hemisphere became viewed as English propaganda by Spanish speakers. This is why are many Spanish speakers in Mexico and Central America who don’t consider themselves to be North Americans. Many of them view North America to be only the United States & Canada.

The Spanish view actually became quite popular with other countries too, esp among those who disliked the British Empire. This is why when the Olympic Flag was created, the Americas shares one ring, while Europe & Asia both have their own.

Ironically though, plate tectonics has proven that North America & South America technically are two different continental plates (while most of Central American is on the small Caribbean Plate). So there are two major continents in the Western hemisphere after all. While the vast majority of Europe and Asia are on one continental plate.

As an aside, half of Island is on the Eurasian Plate, while the other half is on the North American Plate.

I hope this helps.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

This is a very accurate assessment. The only difference is that, aside from Spain itself, the Spanish-speaking countries are all in one contiguous geographical area, a long narrow strip from Mexico south to Chile and Argentina, with various island countries in the Caribbean.

Well, the people who live in small spanish speaking parts of Africa and the spanish speaking parts of the Philippines are technically considered “hispanic” too.

I didn’t know the Philippines had “Spanish-speaking parts”. Learn something new every day.

I know what you are saying, but I meant that the “Hispanosphere” tends to be concentrated in one part of the world (aside from the linguistic mother country), while the Anglosphere and the Francophonie is scattered out all over the globe. There are, to be sure, isolated non-American places where Spanish is spoken (possibly the former Spanish Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, Ceuta, Melilla, the Canary Islands), but probably 99%+ of all non-Iberian Spanish-speakers are in the Americas.

It is very common throughout Latin America.

The reason is during the 1500 & 1600s, Spanish and English disagreed regarding the number of continents discovered in the Western Hemisphere.

The English said there were two separate continents, the Spanish said there was only one.

Later, because of the conflict between the two nations, Catholic countries (including the Pope) backed the idea that there was only one continent, while Protestant nations back the English idea that there were two.

The idea that there is two continents in the Western hemisphere became viewed as English propaganda by Spanish speakers. This is why are many Spanish speakers in Mexico and Central America who don’t consider themselves to be North Americans. Many of them view North America to be only the United States & Canada.

The Spanish view actually became quite popular with other countries too, esp among those who disliked the British Empire. This is why when the Olympic Flag was created, the Americas shares one ring, while Europe & Asia both have their own.

I didn’t know this entire backstory. This is very educational. I do know that the English-language edition of Cuban newspaper Granma has a section called “Our America”.

As an aside, half of Iceland is on the Eurasian Plate, while the other half is on the North American Plate.

That is just too cool.

 

[Angel_Bradford]

Technically, although he was born in Argentina, Pope Francis is not Latino; his father and maternal grandparents immigrated from Italy.

 

[po18guy]

I think the subject/author/reference source of the post is insinuating overt racism, which is ill-advised, since Italians were not well accepted 100 years ago in the US. Did Americans have trouble with any of the Italian Popes? And Pope Francis is Italian by bloodline!

As an aside, many consider the Church in Mexico to be poor overall. However, for but one example, the popular Mexican actor and comedian Cantínflas (Mario Moreno) is reputed to have donated large suns to both Church and orphanages in the Mexico.

 

[AlbMagno]

Gracias por el análisis! Sí, somos muy creidos y eso nos hace creernos europeos. Eso también hace que sea difícil tener influencias externas, como el comunismo o el capitalismo estadounidense, pero tenemos nuestros propios problemas, si no nos controlan, nos controlamos a nosotros mismos con un secularismo auto-impuesto.

To all the other posters, Pope Francis is NOT a Liberation Theologian, in fact, he had a sour relationship with other Jesuits here in Argentina for warning them about it.

He DOES believe in some social approaches to diocesan care, like the idea of “Curas Villeros” (priest who are formed and live in poor urban aglomerations, with the hope of teaching the people professions and fighting against drug addictions and narcotraffic). This is an example of the “experiments” (a Jesuit spiritual term) he did while he was in Buenos Aires.

And another thing to consider, is that he was formed during a US financed dictatorship during the Cold War, the “Proceso de Reorganización Nacional”, with close ties to the CIA Operation Condor, so is logical that he has some reservations about US external politics. This is just an observation, however, not a personal judgement.

 

[blackforest]

Basically, even when Francis quotes the exact words of John Paul II or Benedict XVI, from the moment it comes out of his mouth, it is immediately perceived as coming from a dangerous pope, who has an idea unorthodox of Catholicism. For us Europeans, this pope is not different from the others; for Americans, it is the opposite of its predecessors. The first reactions written on this pope in 2013 evoked “an anti-American pope”, “revolutionary” … even before his first most important decisions! And over the years, it has gotten worse."
La Croix .

This thread is going all over the place. Could you walk us through exactly what argument you’re trying to make here? Specifically why would [North] Americans take issue with the Pope for being from Argentina?

Argentina is more developed than most.

True, although approximately one-third of the country lives in poverty. I’ve seen some impoverished areas there. Not pretty.

 

[Anicette]

There is no particular disliking of Jesuits in the United States. Your average Catholic in the pew would have only a hazy understanding of what a Jesuit even is . Americans don’t think about that kind of thing.

Okay thanks you.
But do we speak of the average Catholic? I am sure that almost all people have an idea what a Jesuit is, and we are not the average Catholic. For me, the average catholic is not engaged a lot in the Church and practice only occasionally. So he may not think of theses questions concerning hus Church…

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

There is no particular disliking of Jesuits in the United States. Your average Catholic in the pew would have only a hazy understanding of what a Jesuit even is . Americans don’t think about that kind of thing.

Okay thanks you.
But do we speak of the average Catholic? I am sure that almost all people have an idea what a Jesuit is, and we are not the average Catholic. For me, the average catholic is not engaged a lot in the Church and practice only occasionally. So he may not think of theses questions concerning hus Church…

Anybody who regularly reads CAF would surely know what a Jesuit is, but your typical suburban American Catholic, they might have heard the word, or at best, know it is some kind of religious order or society of priests, but that would be about it. I take it you are in France, is that right? France is a far more intellectually-oriented country than the United States is. As I understand it, France also has a kind of history with the Jesuits, whereas the US does not — they would be known for their universities, among people who think about that kind of thing, but that would be the extent of it. Catholicism in the United States, for so many, can be pretty much summed up as “it’s all about love, everyone is going to heaven, everyone is good, all religions are good, everyone goes to communion, many people never go to confession, and we don’t let the Church’s moral teachings get in the way of having an easy, prosperous, happy life”. In an environment such as this, what the Jesuits do, what they don’t do, what they think, and so on, aren’t even on anyone’s radar screen. People couldn’t care less.

 

[Anicette]

As I understand it, France also has a kind of history with the Jesuits, whereas the US does not

They spread the front pedagogy for schools
They run schools
They intellectually won again the Poland elites from Protestantism…

Yes, but it is history!

Presently, Jesuits are very few in France and I would said that their congregations are dying. There are some Jesuits groups in Paris that are active in the schools among others things. They run some religious magazines. I known one when i was a young adult… very jesuit…in a word not a typical orthodox magazine.

To sum up, unless you are an upper class Parisian (or who live in a metropole), who are active in Church’s circles, you will not see Jesuits very often. I have only seen one one time in my life!

People don’t know jesuits too. It can also been very negatively connected in the “average” French (indigenous missions etc).

France is a far more intellectually-oriented country than the United States is.

On average I agree.
Certainely the fact that we can go to universities more easily, that the intellect and personal reflexion is valued in high school with philosophy classes for eg certainely play a role.
And the richness or our intelectual culture, such as the Lumières philosophers and all our religious heritage…
And we think (or thank…) more on topics such as bioethical regulations.

My steteotype of America is a hard country where self-interests (personal, national etc) are the put before others things, people have to be responsibles for themselves and the society does not help a lot when some of their members know difficult times or specific needs.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

France is a far more intellectually-oriented country than the United States is.

On average I agree.
Certainely the fact that we can go to universities more easily, that the intellect and personal reflexion is valued in high school with philosophy classes for eg certainely play a role.
And the richness or our intelectual culture, such as the Lumières philosophers and all our religious heritage…

C’est vrai, it is a rich heritage and culture indeed. The typical American has no idea what “philosophy” even is. Some college students might take it as a single elective class. I was blessed to have a mentor-priest in high school who was a philosophy student, and I took a course to learn more, then three more classes. Much of my study in college was intellectual history and the history of ideas.