Florida bishop on hurricanes: 'We don't have the same theology as Pat Robertson'

[BLB_Oregon]

fix:

It is often said there is no such thing as a coincidence. Everything is God’s will, be it ordained or permitted.

We have decided to limit God it seems? Does the Church now teach God never punishes us in this world?

Of course the Church teaches that straying from God’s Wisdom will inevitably lead to adverse consequences. But the Church also teaches that you may not assume that people who have bad things happen to them in the form of natural disasters are more guilty than those who don’t, a stand that comes directly from the red letters (as pointed out above). There is no contradiction there.

Pat Robertson isn’t content with telling the city council the difference between right and wrong. He wants to be able to lay some blame for the hurricane season at their feet, while putting relief from hurricane season on the heads of his listeners. That isn’t right, and we should protest that when we hear it. It puts God’s Wisdom at our beck and call, and that is not the way it works.

 

[fix]

BLB_Oregon:

Of course the Church teaches that straying from God’s Wisdom will inevitably lead to adverse consequences. But the Church also teaches that you may not assume that people who have bad things happen to them in the form of natural disasters are more guilty than those who don’t, a stand that comes directly from the red letters (as pointed out above). There is no contradiction there.

Pat Robertson isn’t content with telling the city council the difference between right and wrong. He wants to be able to lay some blame for the hurricane season at their feet, while putting relief from hurricane season on the heads of his listeners. That isn’t right, and we should protest that when we hear it. It puts God’s Wisdom at our beck and call, and that is not the way it works.

My point is the bishop claimed natural disasters are never a punishment. How can anyone say that? To say that such things are NEVER a punishment seems to be unCatholic?

I was not addressing Pat Robertson’s remarks. I was addressing the bishops remaks.

 

[pnewton]

Why is there such an insistance in taking this remark out of context? It was in direct response to the theology that God sends natural disasters to the most sinful areas and blesses the righteous with veering hurricanes. It is by itself an innacurate reflection of the totality of the way God works, but it was an isolated statement. Context, people, context.

 

[fix]

pnewton:

Why is there such an insistance in taking this remark out of context? It was in direct response to the theology that God sends natural disasters to the most sinful areas and blesses the righteous with veering hurricanes. It is by itself an innacurate reflection of the totality of the way God works, but it was an isolated statement. Context, people, context.

All we have is the news report, nothing else. As it was reported, the bishop did not qualify his remarks.

 

[pnewton]

fix:

All we have is the news report, nothing else. As it was reported, the bishop did not qualify his remarks.

"We don’t have the same theology as Pat Robertson," Wenski said before the Mass. “Hurricanes are not a divine punishment.”

As reported, we are given the context, that of Pat Robertson and his remarks concerning hurricanes. Qualification is not needed anymore than armchair bishoping.

 

[fix]

“We don’t have the same theology as Pat Robertson,” Wenski said before the Mass. “Hurricanes are not a divine punishment.”

As reported, we are given the context, that of Pat Robertson and his remarks concerning hurricanes. Qualification is not needed anymore than armchair bishoping.

“Jesus warns us not to see these events as somehow the wrath of an angry God,” Wenski said.

The bishop, as reported, seems to take the position God does not ever use nature as chastisement. I do not know what he intended to say, but I can read what he said.

He could have qualified it but he did not, or perhaps it was not fully reported. In any event, it is not armchair bishoping, but commenting on this one remark.