Catholicism can and must change, Francis forcefully tells Italian church gathering

[frangiuliano115]

He seems to bring up those words in the context of Pelagianism. The Pelagianism that he talks about seems to imply perfect, ideal, beyond reproach, but only perfect and ideal, because it is lived out in the fleshless, bloodless, realm of the abstract, in the world without dirt, and filth, and bruises, and doubt, and equivocation.
That attitude of certainty that the pope is speaking against involves using dogma not as an armour against sin, but an armor against authentic dialogue with people who have very different ideas and attitudes and lifestyles.

The attitude that the pope is talking about, I think, goes something like 'Church teaching is perfect and beyond reproach, beyond change, so therefore I am perfect and beyond reproach, inasmuch as I ape Church teaching".

The pope prefers doubt, and therefore openness,over a certainty that walls us in, cocoons us even. A church of flesh is subject to bruising, and growth, and transformation. Flesh lives, with all the pain and pleasure and vulnerability and thrill that is implied by a life in the flesh.

A church beyond change is a church that is calcified, hardened, as beautiful and cold and flawlessly smooth and lifeless as marble.

It reminds me of the song ‘life is change, how it differs from the rocks’.

‘The RCC is the truth, end of argument’ leaves the Church invulnerable, but untouchable. It sounds like the pope wants Italians to open up to the truths of those who are outside of the cold stone impermeable walls of the fortress church.

I agree. And why are we referring to Italians? Does the Pope not speak for all catholics?
Does he not take the opportunity afforded to him to say what’s on his mind? This day down in Florence was an opportunity.

The moderator was very thoughtful in posting the entire speech. I hate when snippets are taken out. I did the same thing when I spoke above re the Ecce Homo aspect of his speech. So wonderful to have it down in black and white.

Italians are not the only catholics who need to change a bit. Let’s say “soften up”. I don’t mean to accept SSM, abortion and those other things the other poster had asked about.

How about just opening up our heart to the message of the beautitudes. I did a lesson on these not 3 months ago. It took WEEKS to get through the 8 of them. Jesus wants a transformation of the person - not some BODY who is going to just follow rules. I’m finding it so difficult to get this idea across and am seeing others try and fail and I do keep wondering why.

Take Ruth, for instance. What a beautiful story. Right in between Judges and the Kings. Will have to study up on why someday. Anyway, The women would reap the wheat from the flelds, then they would gleen (? I think) the kernels from the wheat.

Ann amount of the gleened wheat would be left for the poor people or they’d have nothing to eat. They women would literally leave it on the ground, and the poor would pick it up.

So, I ask this:

Is it easier to make a rule that 10% of the wheat had to be left on the ground –

Or is it easier to say that you may leave on the ground what your heart tells you to leave?

I say the 10% rule is easier. It’s also a RULE that has noting to do with my heart condition! it’s more difficult to go with no. 2, but it’s WHAT JESUS TAUGHT. He taught that it’s our heart condition that counts, not if we understand every rule, law and regulation and every nuance in the CCC. Our heart condition will lead us to follow all His rules, even the ones not written down. I believe the Pope is always referring to this heart condition.

I’m happy to say that many do understand this, as do you but, and I repeat, why does it intimidate others? No response yet.

Fran

 

[Vouthon]

He seems to bring up those words in the context of Pelagianism. The Pelagianism that he talks about seems to imply perfect, ideal, beyond reproach, but only perfect and ideal, because it is lived out in the fleshless, bloodless, realm of the abstract, in the world without dirt, and filth, and bruises, and doubt, and equivocation.
That attitude of certainty that the pope is speaking against involves using dogma not as an armour against sin, but an armor against authentic dialogue with people who have very different ideas and attitudes and lifestyles.

The attitude that the pope is talking about, I think, goes something like 'Church teaching is perfect and beyond reproach, beyond change, so therefore I am perfect and beyond reproach, inasmuch as I ape Church teaching".

The pope prefers doubt, and therefore openness,over a certainty that walls us in, cocoons us even. A church of flesh is subject to bruising, and growth, and transformation. Flesh lives, with all the pain and pleasure and vulnerability and thrill that is implied by a life in the flesh.

A church beyond change is a church that is calcified, hardened, as beautiful and cold and flawlessly smooth and lifeless as marble.

It reminds me of the song ‘life is change, how it differs from the rocks’.

‘The RCC is the truth, end of argument’ leaves the Church invulnerable, but untouchable. It sounds like the pope wants Italians to open up to the truths of those who are outside of the cold stone impermeable walls of the fortress church.

Beautifully written and thought-out post

I am reminded of:

**Ezekiel 36:26 **

*Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. *

The Pope spoke regarding this same theme of ‘hardened hearts’ back in January of this year too:

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/01/09/pope_francis_only_the_spirit_opens_our_hearts_to_love_god/1117555

Pope Francis said a person’s heart can be made of stone for many reasons, such as, for example, a painful experience in one’s life. But as he went on to point out, another reason for hardened hearts is because people are closed in on themselves.

“Creating a world within one self, all closed in. Closed within oneself, in one’s community or parish, but always closed in. And this closure can revolve around so many things. But let’s think about pride, self-sufficiency, thinking I am better than others, and vanity too, right? There are ‘mirror-men and women’ (who are wedded to their own image in the mirror), who are closed in on themselves and are constantly looking at themselves, right? These religious narcissists, right? But they have a hardened heart because they are closed in on themselves, they are not open. And they seek to defend themselves with these walls that they have created around themselves.”

Hardened hearts because of insecurity and fear

The Pope said these hardened hearts in people can also arise from a problem of insecurity, such as those who barricade themselves behind the laws and rules, as though inside a prison, to feel safer and follow these rules to the letter,

“When a heart becomes hardened, it’s not free and if it’s not free it’s because that person isn’t capable of love, that was the fate of the Apostle John in the first Reading. A love that’s perfect banishes fear: in love there’s no fear, because fear is expecting a punishment and a person who’s afraid doesn’t have a perfect love. He or she is not free. They are constantly afraid that something painful or sad will occur, that will cause their life to go badly or will endanger their eternal salvation… What an (over-active) imagination, because he or she can’t love. A person who isn’t capable of loving is not free. And their heart was hardened because they hadn’t learnt how to love.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily by stressing that only the Holy Spirit can teach us how to love and free us from our hardened hearts.

“You can follow a thousand catechism courses, a thousand spirituality courses, a thousand yoga or zen courses and all these things. But none of this will be able to give you the freedom as a child (of God). Only the Holy Spirit can prompt your heart to say ‘Father.’ Only the Holy Spirit is capable of banishing, of breaking that hardness of heart and making it … soft? No, I don’t like that word, … ‘docile’. Docile towards the Lord. Docile when it comes to the freedom to love.”

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

From a secular author:

Why conservative Christians would have hated Jesus
Even as they profess to spread his word, fundamentalists are forgetting Jesus’ most important message

Jesus never could have been the pastor of a contemporary evangelical church nor a conservative Roman Catholic bishop. Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics thrive on drawing distinctions between their “truth” and other people’s failings. Jesus by contrast, set off an empathy time bomb that obliterates difference.

Jesus’ empathy bomb explodes every time a former evangelical puts love ahead of what the “Bible says.” It goes off every time Pope Francis puts inclusion ahead of dogma. It goes off every time a gay couple are welcomed into a church. Jesus’ time bomb explodes … A lot of this is exactly what Pope Francis was referring to.

We don’t know who “conservative bishops” are. Even God doesn’t. Some of them are faithful because they haven’t rejected some of Jesus’ teachings.

Welcoming has been dealt with in many other threads in depth. To the Jesus of the Scriptures, sacraments aren’t Smarties.

True (not false) inclusion IS dogma.

The hard-hearted and the soft-hearted, ARE THE SAME PEOPLE.

Francis says do new (today), by doing old (Beatitudes).

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… Take Ruth, for instance. What a beautiful story. Right in between Judges and the Kings. Will have to study up on why someday. Anyway, The women would reap the wheat from the flelds, then they would gleen (? I think) the kernels from the wheat.

Ann amount of the gleened wheat would be left for the poor people or they’d have nothing to eat. They women would literally leave it on the ground, and the poor would pick it up.

So, I ask this:

Is it easier to make a rule that 10% of the wheat had to be left on the ground –

Or is it easier to say that you may leave on the ground what your heart tells you to leave?

I say the 10% rule is easier. It’s also a RULE that has noting to do with my heart condition! it’s more difficult to go with no. 2, but it’s WHAT JESUS TAUGHT. He taught that it’s our heart condition that counts, not if we understand every rule, law and regulation and every nuance in the CCC. Our heart condition will lead us to follow all His rules, even the ones not written down. I believe the Pope is always referring to this heart condition.

I’m happy to say that many do understand this, as do you but, and I repeat, why does it intimidate others? No response yet.

Fran

Fran,

I picture myself on a bad day with a wry smile. I want to give others their 2%. Just a leeeetle bit more is what Jesus suggests - ouch !!!

Incidentally nobody stands over me marking me up or down on an hourly basis.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

I don’t find what you are saying complicated at all, Fran. Rules should not be at the front end of evangelization. We need rules, or God would not have given them to us, but Jesus said it best “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. The relationship needs to come first. We need to “behold” Him, and know Him as a person, otherwise following rules is just, as you say, “external”. I think this is the biggest reason why Catholics leave the Church today. They crave a relationship, a meaningful and powerful experience with God. We have whole pews full of Catholics who are sacramentalized, but not evangelized. They go through the motions, but have not encountered Christ.

Guanophore says it here. Justin also says it in bringing together the things that were never meant to be pitted against each other.

Spirit is the new law and law is the new spirit.

To be presumptuous about your life story Fran, I would guess you were “got at” when younger, then during the 70s and 80s it was “OK” to “let it all hang out”, then in the 90s it came into fashion to look “orthodox”, and now we are all at sea.

I had the luxury of never being much involved in the Church, by contrast. From the second phase of this outline onwards, that outline is my story.

Some are seen as being “on the way in” and some as “on the way out”. Night time is the proverbial time of ships passing!

Only each can tell. What we have to say to forum readers is urge them to check with the best sources. A living Church helps greatly. I’ve had this on and off.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… We have whole pews full of Catholics who are sacramentalized, but not evangelized. They go through the motions, but have not encountered Christ.

This is exactly what the falsely soft-hearted are doing to the pewsful. They are sacramentalising and not evangelising them.

 

[gilliam]

Here is another translation from the Archbishop of Brisbane

brisbanecatholic.org.au/articles/pope-francis-florence-address/

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I think that what Raimon Panikkar said is relevant to what Pope Francis is expressing since becoming Pope, “When theology is divorced from cosmology, we no longer have a living God, but an idea of God. God then becomes a thought that can be accepted or rejected rather than the experience of divine ultimacy. Because theology has not developed in tandem with science (or science in tandem with theology) since the Middle Ages, we have an enormous gap between the transcendent dimension of human existence (the religious dimension) and the meaning of physical reality as science understands it (the material dimension). This gap underlies our global problems today, from the environmental crisis to economic disparity and the denigration of women.”

Jim

 

[Thomas_White]

With respect to ‘conservatism/fundamentalism’ mentioned in the OP, perhaps the following quote would help provide a clearer understanding of Pope Francis’s views.

"If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security’, those who stubbornly try to recapture a past that no longer exists–they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way faith becomes an ideology along with other ideologies…

“We grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the Church to mature in her own judgment. Even other sciences and their development help the Church in its growth and understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost their value or meaning. The view of the Church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong” (Pope Francis, as quoted in the U.S. Jesuit magazine America).

 

[frangiuliano115]

Beautifully written and thought-out post

I am reminded of:

**Ezekiel 36:26 **

*Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. *

The Pope spoke regarding this same theme of ‘hardened hearts’ back in January of this year too:

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/01/09/pope_francis_only_the_spirit_opens_our_hearts_to_love_god/1117555[/QUOT]

I agree re Daryl1958’s post. Perfect.
I also was reminded of Ezekiel. Thanks for mentioning it. It’s one of the more important verses in the bible re the heart condition, also Jeremiah speaks of this and Psalms.

 

[frangiuliano115]

Guanophore says it here. Justin also says it in bringing together the things that were never meant to be pitted against each other.

Spirit is the new law and law is the new spirit.

To be presumptuous about your life story Fran, I would guess you were “got at” when younger, then during the 70s and 80s it was “OK” to “let it all hang out”, then in the 90s it came into fashion to look “orthodox”, and now we are all at sea.

I had the luxury of never being much involved in the Church, by contrast. From the second phase of this outline onwards, that outline is my story.

Some are seen as being “on the way in” and some as “on the way out”. Night time is the proverbial time of ships passing!

Only each can tell. What we have to say to forum readers is urge them to check with the best sources. A living Church helps greatly. I’ve had this on and off.

Hmmm. I don’t think that’s how it was for me. Was I ever orthodox? What does that even mean?

A living church and a living spirit. Both good. But not everyone is lucky enough!

Fran

 

[frangiuliano115]

I was driving along this morning thinking about this post. I don’t usually post this much; i find this to be so important - that some thought is given to all this misunderstanding.

I was wondering why Pope Francis speaks so vaguely at times. He’s not a dumb man! He leaves us on these threads, wondering what he really meant.

Discussing legalism and spirituality.

I thought: Could it be that he does this purposefully? Because he doesn’t care to make new Rules and Regulations for us to follow but would like us to question and search our hearts and come up with the answer.

What is the answer?

Fran

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I was driving along this morning thinking about this post. I don’t usually post this much; i find this to be so important - that some thought is given to all this misunderstanding.

I was wondering why Pope Francis speaks so vaguely at times. He’s not a dumb man! He leaves us on these threads, wondering what he really meant.

Discussing legalism and spirituality.

I thought: Could it be that he does this purposefully? Because he doesn’t care to make new Rules and Regulations for us to follow but would like us to question and search our hearts and come up with the answer.

What is the answer?

Fran

It could be.

On the other hand, he may just do so unconsciously on how the world will accept or reject what he says, and he just says what he believes regardless.

Jim

 

[Thomas_White]

I was driving along this morning thinking about this post. I don’t usually post this much; i find this to be so important - that some thought is given to all this misunderstanding.

I was wondering why Pope Francis speaks so vaguely at times. He’s not a dumb man! He leaves us on these threads, wondering what he really meant.

Discussing legalism and spirituality.

I thought: Could it be that he does this purposefully? Because he doesn’t care to make new Rules and Regulations for us to follow but would like us to question and search our hearts and come up with the answer.

What is the answer?

Fran

The past no longer exists, and the future does not yet exist. There is only the present, and it is infinitely less than any moment of time. It is outside of time as the eternal present. This is difficult to express in words, but it is already the condition of the eternal soul. I believe this can only be understood by the ‘heart’.

 

[frangiuliano115]

It could be.

On the other hand, he may just do so unconsciously on how the world will accept or reject what he says, and he just says what he believes regardless.

Jim

I like what you said:

God is not an idea -
He is divine -

Ideas can be explained in books, laws can be explained, rules can be posted.

Divinity is more elusive. Who can explain it? God breathes His spirit into us and we must rise to meet this divinity somehow. If i go to Mass but don’t really want to be there but a rule tells me I have to go and I want to be catholic, does this action raise me to see divine splendor?

I think not.

Fran

 

[Michael1978]

With respect to ‘conservatism/fundamentalism’ mentioned in the OP, perhaps the following quote would help provide a clearer understanding of Pope Francis’s views.

"If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security’, those who stubbornly try to recapture a past that no longer exists–they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way faith becomes an ideology along with other ideologies…

“We grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the Church to mature in her own judgment. Even other sciences and their development help the Church in its growth and understanding. **There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost their value or meaning. **The view of the Church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong” (Pope Francis, as quoted in the U.S. Jesuit magazine America).

I get the gist of what the Holy Father is saying, but I wish he would provide some concrete examples of the bolded portion of his quote.

 

[frangiuliano115]

The past no longer exists, and the future does not yet exist. There is only the present, and it is infinitely less than any moment of time. It is outside of time as the eternal present. This is difficult to express in words, but it is already the condition of the eternal soul. I believe this can only be understood by the ‘heart’.

We’re already where we desire to be or in that “place” our soul resides in.

 

[Vouthon]

God is not an idea -
He is divine -.

That is why the mystics of our Church are so critical of “discursive reasoning” when it comes to speaking of God. They opt for the ‘apophatic’ approach, saying that the ultimate truth may be apprehended only through an unspeakable experience of divine love and grace.

That experience cannot be conceptualized into a “viewpoint” or “opinion” to be defended in pointless disputes whose only purpose is praise and profit and which only increases suffering (as the history of religions and secular philosophies only too grievously testifies). God is the ‘coincidence of opposites’.

The true contemplative, in their understanding, therefore clings to no opinion born of sensory data (sight, hearing, taste, touch, thought) when describing divinity.

God as He is in Himself cannot be comprehended by means of sense-perceptions and mental constructs. Therefore one must transcend them entirely to attain union with God.

St. Thomas Aquinas:

“…The ultimate reach of our knowledge of God consists in realizing that we do not know him…God eludes the conception of our intellect because he transcends all that our mind conceives of him…”

***- Saint Thomas Aquinas (De Potentia VII, 5, ad 14) ***

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI referred to this in one of his catechesis talks:

w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080514.html

**BENEDICT XVI

GENERAL AUDIENCE
**

Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the course of the Catechesis on the Fathers of the Church, today I would like to speak of a rather mysterious figure: a sixth-century theologian whose name is unknown and who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite…

Pseudo-Dionysius shows that in the end the journey to God is God himself, who makes himself close to us in Jesus Christ. Thus, a great and mysterious theology also becomes very concrete, both in the interpretation of the liturgy and in the discourse on Jesus Christ: with all this, Dionysius the Areopagite exerted a strong influence on all medieval theology and on all mystical theology, both in the East and in the West. He was virtually rediscovered in the 13th century, especially by St Bonaventure, the great Franciscan theologian who in this mystical theology found the conceptual instrument for reinterpreting the heritage - so simple and profound - of St Francis. Together with Dionysius, the “Poverello” tells us that in the end love sees more than reason. Where the light of love shines the shadows of reason are dispelled; love sees, love is an eye and experience gives us more than reflection. Bonaventure saw in St Francis what this experience is: it is the experience of a very humble, very realistic journey, day by day, it is walking with Christ, accepting his Cross. In this poverty and in this humility, in the humility that is also lived in ecclesiality, is an experience of God which is loftier than that attained by reflection. In it we really touch God’s Heart.

Today Dionysius the Areopagite has a new relevance: he appears as a great mediator in the modern dialogue between Christianity and the mystical theologies of Asia, whose characteristic feature is the conviction that it is impossible to say who God is, that only indirect things can be said about him; that God can only be spoken of with the “not”, and that it is only possible to reach him by entering into this indirect experience of “not”. And here a similarity can be seen between the thought of the Areopagite and that of Asian religions; he can be a mediator today as he was between the Greek spirit and the Gospel.

As Benedict notes, the implications of this are very important for both interfaith dialogue and ecumenism within Christianity.

No one explained it better than a 15th century Cardinal called Nicholas of Cusa:

en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Kues, was a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, astronomer, cardinal and mystic of the Catholic Church. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions in European history…

“It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.”

"Therefore, come to our aid you who alone are able. For this rivalry [of religions and philosophies] exists for sake of you, whom alone they revere in everything that all seem to worship. For each one desires in all that he seems to desire only the good which you are; no one is seeking with all his intellectual searching for anything else than the truth which you are…

Therefore, it is you, the giver of life and being, who seem to be sought in the different rites by different ways and are named with different names, because as you are you remain unknown and ineffable to all. For you who are infinite power are none of those things which you have created, nor can a creature grasp the concept of your infinity since there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite. But you, almighty God, who are invisible to every mind, are able to show yourself as visible to whom you will and in the way in which you can be grasped…".

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… what Raimon Panikkar said … “When theology is divorced from cosmology, we no longer have a living God, but an idea of God. God then becomes a thought that can be accepted or rejected rather than the experience of divine ultimacy. Because theology has not developed in tandem with science (or science in tandem with theology) since the Middle Ages, we have an enormous gap between the transcendent dimension of human existence (the religious dimension) and the meaning of physical reality as science understands it (the material dimension). This gap underlies our global problems today, from the environmental crisis to economic disparity and the denigration of women.”

Not many historians or linguists factor in oceanography, astronomy, geology or archaeology either. Genetics are misunderstood. Psychology is adrift. All branches of knowledge ignore findings and progress. Result: the non “transcendent” part of knowledge makes less and less sense and people are switching off getting an education at all.

 

[Thomas_White]

That is why the mystics of our Church are so critical of “discursive reasoning” when it comes to speaking of God. They opt for the '[UeRL=“[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology']Apophatic theology - Wikipedia[/URL]”]apophatic

’ approach, saying that the ultimate truth may be apprehended only through an unspeakable experience of divine love and grace.

That experience cannot be conceptualized into a “viewpoint” or “opinion” to be defended in pointless disputes whose only purpose is praise and profit and which only increases suffering (as the history of religions and secular philosophies only too grievously testifies).

Exactly. Spirituality is an experience. I do not believe it is attainable by the human intellect itself, or experienced by reading doctrine either, since as an experience it is not of the intellect and its understanding. The difficulty is the exclusive reliance on doctrine and rules, and even the attempt to experience spirituality by only following rules. This is an error, I think (and I am hardly alone in thinking so).

Spirituality is an experience of the ‘heart’–of intuition, or feeling or faith, as it were, and ultimately of the absence of thought and concept. It is in this way that a ‘closed heart’ is an impediment to spiritual development and growth, I believe. In its extreme, even conscience is denied (and is perhpaps not know because it is not recognized or experienced). But this is the paradigm of the age, an era of analysis and secular science.